


The Winter of Her Discontent

by LilacFree



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Life on Gallifrey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 01:58:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 73,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5073418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilacFree/pseuds/LilacFree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the conclusion of "The Five Doctors", the Doctor decides to take up the Presidency.  He takes his companions Tegan and Turlough along for company.  Is Gallifrey ready for a Mouth On Legs(tm)?  Is Tegan ready for Gallifrey?  No, but she's used to that.</p><p>I studied many different sources for use in depicting Gallifrey and made some adaptations of my own.  On reflection, Terrance Dicks' "Warmonger" (2002) was influential to the setting but mostly as background.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was years ago posted on fanfiction.net and whofic.com. As Teaspoon is a magnificent archive, I saw no need to crosspost to this site as well. However, I submitted the story to the fanfiction novella contest on Inkitt, and for this purpose I went through the story, applied edits and minor revisions. It sank like a stone there; perhaps someone here may enjoy it. I'm only human!

 

“Doctor, you have evaded your responsibilities for far too long. The disqualification of President Borusaleaves a gap at the very summit of the Time Lord hierarchy. There is only one who can take his place. Yet again it is my duty and my pleasure to inform you that the full Council has exercised its emergency powers to appoint you to the position of President, to take office immediately.”

“Oh, no.” (“The Five Doctors”, Terrance Dicks, 1983)

 

* * *

 

 

 

The Doctor closed the outer door of the TARDIS and sent her off into the vortex. His hands rested on the controls. The lights of the churning Time Rotor stroked up and down his face.

 

“It’ll soon be good-bye then,” Tegan said regretfully.

 

“Will it?” The Doctor looked over at Tegan, who turned to face him. She had changed a great deal from the sullen air hostess who’d been his accidental passenger and he saw genuine affection in her eyes.

 

“Well,” Turlough slapped his hands together, “you’re off to Gallifrey to be President. I suppose your Time Lord subjects will find a TARDIS that really works and get us both home.” His sarcasm served to veil the sorrow the Doctor’s reluctant would-be assassin anticipated at this parting.

 

“Who said anything about sending you two home? Gallifrey has been through enough upheaval. I must do this. And I would ask a favor of you two. Come with me. I don’t want the High Council left in any doubt of what sort of President is in office. They called upon the Master for help. I had you, and many other old friends. I think it has been shown which path was the better choice.”

 

“Do you still need our help? Is that what this is about, Doctor?” Turlough fiddled with his tie, restless fingers giving away the speculation in his gaze.

 

“You can help as you think you may, but you are welcome, more than welcome, to enjoy the amenities of Gallifrey. It is an exceedingly wealthy world. You needn’t have anything to do with the Time Lords.”

 

“Isn’t it more like they needn’t have anything to do with us? Maybe it’s not your way, Doctor, but Borusa looked at us like we were insects.” Tegan tilted her chin up defiantly. “And I hope you don’t expect me to blunt my tongue. I’ve never had much luck at that. Besides, I know you. If you find something wrong you won’t rest until you’ve dragged it all out into the open. I think your fellow Time Lords will be glad to see the back of you in short order.”

 

“May it be so, Tegan, may it be so!” The Doctor laughed. With a light step, he roamed around the console until the Tardis’ engine hummed purposefully. “I was tempted to do a runner and leave Flavia waiting in vain in the High Council chambers.” His face grew somber again. “Borusa was a power in Gallifrey for a long time. I always thought of him as a principled man. Now I wonder who else is going his route while claiming to respect the laws of Rassilon.”

 

Tegan and Turlough exchanged looks. “Politics is a continuation of war by other means, Doctor,” Turlough observed. “My home world recently endured a vicious civil war. Is Gallifrey beyond that?”

 

“It would not be open warfare. The political conflicts of Gallifrey tend to work out in covert maneuvers.   The Time Lords have long claimed they follow a strict policy of non-intervention. Officially, it’s true. Unofficially-- as an exile in dubious favor, I was often forced to work towards their ends.

 

“Anyway—there’s a sense in which having the two of you here with me is a vindication. The Time Lords once captured me and took away the memories of our travels together from my companions. They forced me to regenerate. Yet my last incarnation was voted the Presidency. I never intended to keep the office. It was a desperate measure to stop an alien invasion. They have made it an excuse to recruit me to clean up Borusa’s mess. Me, whom they call the renegade, the clown, the eccentric. I’m not coming back to dance to their tune. I am who I am, and my friends are my friends. Please come with me.” The Doctor looked at Tegan and Turlough and for a moment saw in their places Zoe and Jamie, whose minds had been violated. His companions would serve as a living reproach to the arrogant ways of the Time Lords.

 

He watched their faces as they thought seriously about what he was asking. Turlough was intrigued, his pale eyes sharp with curiosity. The Doctor wasn’t surprised that Turlough was tempted by the idea of living on Gallifrey.

 

Tegan was staring at the Doctor as if she was reading something from his face. He had no idea what she was thinking, which was unusual. In most ways Tegan was frank and outspoken.

 

“I’ll go, Doctor. I understand wanting to make your world a better place. And I’m not ready to go home yet, not when I’ve a chance to see the place that made you.” She grinned; her eyes slid from his face to Turlough’s.

 

“Isn’t Lady Flavia expecting you already, Doctor?” Turlough inquired, raising an eyebrow.

 

“Indeed she is.” The Doctor’s fingers hesitated over the controls. The Lord President did not leave Gallifrey. Was he trapping himself? He entered the final sequence, and the TARDIS sang her materialization song. It was over far too quickly.


	2. Chapter 2

The Presidential Investiture was attended by a forest of Time Lords in full regalia of those shoulder frames that threatened to knock Tegan in the face. Their stately parade step forced her into the same pace for fear of a collision. It also made her reluctant to turn her head suddenly, which she regretted because it was all quite a spectacle. The very best part of it was its relative brevity. Tegan had a feeling that the reason was not a modest desire to minimize pomp, but rather a decision not to give any one Time Lord an overly swelled head by affording him the prolonged attention of his fellows. Tegan and Turlough had been outfitted Gallifreyan style, but still stood out like sore thumbs. Gallifreyans, Trions, and Tellurians all looked outwardly similar. Somehow they were simply out of place: mayflies infesting Eternity. Out of the school uniform at last, Turlough looked princely in a dark robe with a splendid cloak of white bordered with a scarlet and orange brocade.

 

Tegan’s gown was even bolder in metallic red and copper, slashed with white. It had originally been paired with a dress coat of white with a high standing collar, but Tegan had looked at herself in the mirror and thought it made her head with its close-cropped hair look weirdly tiny. She preferred the flattering drape of the dress. The neckline was low enough to expose her collarbones, and she’d seen Time Lords and Ladies glancing sidelong at the display of bare skin. She was showing more than anyone else in the room, her throat, and her bare arms. If only she could fetch a bikini from the TARDIS, that would give them something to stare at.

 

Most of these Time Lords wore middle-aged faces. Tegan noticed right away that the women generally appeared younger, and that there were fewer of them. There was not one among them that did not have the bearing of a queen. Tegan was glad she’d never been one to slouch about, but she doubted she looked anywhere near as regal.

 

The men looked like a collection of University presidents. Their authority had a distinctly intellectual cast; their faces spoke of disdain for youthful folly.

 

The Doctor by far had the most youthful appearance of all the male Time Lords. Only the guardsmen looked his age. Tegan had had to control a smirk at the sight of a contingent of them. With their shiny uniforms and flowing capes they looked like spacemen out of a Buck Rogers adventure serial. It was easier when she looked at their faces. No gung-ho space heroes there. They didn’t actually all look alike but they resembled each other in their regular features and cold expressions. A collection of human soldiers of an equivalent age would be bored or eager or jaded or dedicated. Their bodies would have been more active, more muscular. These guards were lean and efficient in motion, but there was no liveliness in them.   Maybe they were a century or more old; there was no telling age here.

 

After the ceremony, there was the normal period of mingling. Such an innocuous word, ‘mingling’. It implied being around other people; hanging out; casual chit-chat. Time Lord mingling resembled these things the way a family holiday gathering resembled a Vatican conclave to elect a pope. Everyone wore a urbane smile and kept their voices level but underneath they were really thinking about how Aunt Nelly never let Cousin Jill have Nan’s china she was promised. And now here came Turlough to murmur in her ear that this is where he would watch who talked to the Doctor and who didn’t, and see who spoke together in groups. Even a group so controlled as the Time Lords would betray some information by simple association. These were public acts of recognition of status. Who would inherit Grandad’s share in the garage? And would it hurt him to put in a good word for Greg?

 

“You’re really getting into this, aren’t you?”

 

“I was trained to think like this, Tegan. If I can help the Doctor, isn’t that a good thing?”

 

“Yes, yes, I know. But don’t any of these people actually have friends?”

 

Turlough patted her shoulder. “Good question,” he admitted, and wandered off to mingle, and watch.

 

“Doctor!” A female voice lifted, and the Time Lords glanced over their shoulders at the shocking breach of decorum. The Doctor smiled and went to greet the woman.

 

If she was a Time Lady, everything Tegan had deduced so far was wrong. Her brown hair was long and loose except for clips that gathered it away from her face. She wore a long reddish brown dress but she didn’t glide. She strode forward, and the Doctor met her with both hands offered and a delighted smile.

 

“Leela!” The Doctor took Leela’s hands. “Thank you for coming. I’m so glad to see you again, and Andred.”

 

Tegan moved closer. Andred was a fine specimen of young Gallifreyan manhood, tall with dark hair and eyes. His voice sounded sincerely pleasant. “Welcome back to Gallifrey, Doctor. We were watching from the gallery.”

 

Leela had the Doctor pinned under a steely gaze. “You have let yourself be made President again. Should you be congratulated?”

 

“Should I be? Everyone else will, but you know how I feel about such things.” The Doctor smiled placatingly. Now Tegan really wanted to meet these two.

 

“You have not changed within so much as you have without. It is a good face, Doctor, for speaking the truth. I do not think the High Council will like it so well.”

 

“I’m not here to become popular. Now, though I do hope you will come visit… ah, Tegan, perfect timing. Leela, Andred, this is my friend Tegan. I hope you two might be kind enough to help her settle in on Gallifrey as I expect to make a prolonged stay.” The Doctor drew Tegan to him. “Tegan, Leela used to travel with me, and Andred is, er, um—“

 

“He is my mate, Doctor.” Leela’s round blue eyes surveyed Tegan with candid interest. “You look well in the Doctor’s colors. I am glad he brought his friend with him.”

 

Andred was saying something aside to the Doctor about Gallifreyan formal relationships and legalities that Tegan didn’t quite catch. “Thanks, Leela. There’s me and Turlough. You can’t miss him, the red haired party in the white cloak.” She nodded towards Turlough.

 

“I must go deal with the High Council.” The Doctor sounded resigned. “But don’t let that stop you from enjoying yourselves.”

 

“It won’t,” Tegan assured him with cheerful malice.

 

He departed and Tegan turned back to see Leela regarding her approvingly. “You are a good friend, to know how to speak to him. Is the boy your kin?”

 

“No, Turlough is from a different planet than mine.”

 

Andred was tall enough to easily gaze over their heads and over the heads of most of the crowd, even though most of them were wearing lofty collars. “Your friend appears to be comfortable in this venue. Perhaps we can meet him later.” He smiled at Tegan. “You look lovely, Tegan, but a little lost, like a wild flower in a conservatory. You are from Terra’s twentieth century reckoned by the Common Era, yes?”

 

“That’s right. This is all a little overwhelming,” she admitted.

 

Leela came closer. She was taller than Tegan, a rangy woman who looked like she spent a lot of time outdoors. “They are but flesh, and mortal, as it is with us, Tegan. The Doctor is the wisest of all here, and you know how foolish he can sometimes be for all his great wisdom.”

 

“You got that right.”

 

Andred chuckled. “We’ll show you the Citadel. You need to know your way around.”

 

They took her out and showed her the town—so to speak. This was not some random community of people as she would find at home. No one lived here who did not have a place in Gallifreyan society, even if all they were was a retired technician. It became apparent to Tegan that while she was obviously alien and out of place, Leela and Andred were somewhat out of place as well.

 

“So where do you two live?”

 

Andred answered, “I’m commander of the guard of the outer defenses of the Citadel. Leela and I have an apartment in the outer ring.”

 

“So there is an outside? It’s not only one big city?”

 

“Not all Gallifreyans live in the Citadel, but it houses a greater percentage of the planetary population than any other area.”

 

“But aren’t there, well, windows?” Tegan looked all around the austerely decorated public space with its carefully contained plant-life. Though the ceiling was a hundred feet high, there was nary a skylight to be seen.

 

“Not here. You’re quartered in the Presidential suite. It has a garden attached to it that is outside, though it’s protected by a force screen. It is very peaceful and private. I think you will like it.” Andred exchanged a glance with Leela.

 

“We also have a garden. I imported some plants from my home world. But not Janis thorns.” Leela chuckled and Andred pulled a wry face.

 

They explained how the basic amenities of life were obtained. Machinery, unobtrusive but all pervasive, provided at request necessities and small comforts. Leela had taken a moment when Andred was not present to tell Tegan that the bath chambers were equipped to handle the full range of female hygiene requirements. She put it bluntly, to Tegan’s relief. She hadn’t had time to explore the facilities yet.

 

“Ask the computer. The machine voice will tell you what you need to know about such things. Ask the Doctor if you must, but do not ask the female Time Lords. They already look down on you. They do not know women’s secrets.”

 

At the end of the tour, they’d stopped in a public eatery. It wasn’t like a restaurant or a pub. It most closely resembled a sidewalk café, but without waiters or hosts or cooks. All functions were automated. Upon ordering, a selection of food and drink was transmatted to their table. Tegan blessed her childhood spent on the edges of the Outback. She’d eaten bush tucker and these elegantly presented Gallifreyan nibblements were not a challenge.

 

“As long as the food comes to your table, you will not be offered anything that would disagree with normal human body chemistry.” Andred added, “If you have special needs, you should make sure that the system is aware that you cannot tolerate certain foods, and it should all be handled without your having to think about it. That is how it should work.”

 

Leela warned, “Take care in whose company you eat. There are some who would think it a game to let you eat something you shouldn’t.”

 

Andred said rather stiffly, “Hopefully she will be given the respect that civilized people should afford the guest of their President.”

 

Somehow Andred’s reassurance failed to reassure Tegan, but the food was good.

 

They were nearly done with the meal when a young man approached.

 

“So here you are, Andred, with your savages. No offense meant! Most Gallifreyans are so dull that a little savagery can only improve life in this heap of antique dust.”   The speaker took up a nonchalant stance, leaning against the nearby wall. “Lady Leela, you are an ornament to this world as bright as the edge of your knife. And this beauty must be one of the companions of the infamous… er…. notorious… renegade—oh, dear. I mean, of course, our illustrious Lord President. Will he let himself be called Theta Sigma? I hope so, because ‘Lord President Doctor’ is simply too many titles for any one Time Lord.”

 

The newcomer had sleek blond hair that curled on the nape of his neck. His eyes were a brilliant blue and he was startlingly good looking. Tegan busied herself with a bit of food to keep from staring. His smile was the broadest expression Tegan had seen on any Gallifreyan face save the Doctor’s. For someone wearing a long grey robe bordered in heliotrope, he still managed to be butch. Perhaps it was due to the breadth of his shoulders, which Tegan couldn’t help noticing.

 

“How you do run on, Keludar, yet you’re still here,” Andred said with ill-concealed displeasure.

 

“Indisputably. I’m standing right here. Would you like me to recite the appropriate equation describing our relative positions in 12 dimensions?”

 

Keludar had an attractive tenor voice. Tegan was still not looking. It would only encourage him to continue believing he was of interest.

 

Andred sighed. “Tegan Jovanka, allow me to present Keludar of the Patrexean Chapter, student, would-be Time Lord, and gadfly.”

 

“You can only present me if she’ll actually look at me, Andred. I perceive I am scorned.” Keludar affected wistfulness.

 

Tegan looked straight at him. “I’ll scorn you to your face if I want.” Now that she was facing the conversation, she saw Leela watching Keludar with the remote consideration of a predator.

 

Andred simply looked annoyed, but he completed the introduction. “Keludar, this is Tegan Jovanka, friend of the Lord President and guest of the High Council.”

 

Keludar tilted his handsome head to one side, surveying Tegan as Andred spoke. Then he bowed. “The Doctor should return to Gallifrey more often if he keeps bringing such jewels with him. Quick, let’s start a petition to exile him again!”

 

His grin brought a sparkle to his eyes and Tegan could not resist laughing with him. “He’d probably thank you for it.”

 

Andred was smiling, albeit reluctantly, but Leela frowned.

 

“Lady Leela, have I scandalized you again? Sadly you’ve never much cared for my wit.”

 

“You speak with less sense than the wind that ruffles the dead leaves, Keludar, but at least you know how to smile.” Leela had never taken her calm gaze off the man. Tegan figured he must have already have a Time Lord’s ego not to be intimidated.

 

Keludar laughed again. “Those are the kindest words you’ve given me this decade, lady. I shall depart on the high tide of your favor. Andred, you are fortune’s favored. Tegan, I am at your service.” He smiled at her, bowed once more, and walked away.

 

Tegan blinked after him. “Well, he’s different.”

 

Andred shook his head. “There are a few like him about. The senior Academy students are under great stress as they prepare to qualify as Time Lords. In some it highlights the eccentricities of their characters.”

 

“Does he talk like that to everyone or just primitives?”

 

“Everyone.”

 

“No,” said Leela. “He’s interested in Tegan.”

 

“But I thought…” Tegan saw disaster looming if she finished that sentence. She swallowed the words, then under their expectant gazes produced, “Wasn’t he just taking the piss?”

 

Both of them blinked at her uncomprehendingly. Tegan did a quick rewind and corrected, “Making a joke of it, I mean.”

 

“Ah, an idiom. Keludar does think himself witty. His friends seem to agree.”

 

“Gallifrey is a whole world, an old world. There’s more to it than Time Lords and guards and the laws of Rassilon. You’ll see.” Leela smiled at Tegan. “Do not fear. When I came here I was a savage, even the Doctor called me so. I do not think I have changed so much, and I have found a place here.”

 

Tegan shrugged. “I’m only staying as long as the Doctor needs to clean up local politics. Come to think of it, that could be a good long while.”

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Leela and Andred walked her back to the Presidential suite. Tegan picked out the route, practicing what they taught her about the signs of status that marked the different areas of the Citadel. The Presidential suite was an entire residential block that had room for any retinue that a President might choose to gather around him, as well as apartments of state for visiting dignitaries. As Gallifrey no longer received ambassadors from other worlds (‘not for millennia’), Tegan and Turlough had each been assigned a vast apartment.

Having made sure she knew how to contact them, Leela and Andred left Tegan at her door, which was guarded by a tall young Gallifreyan. His uniform was all white and gold, as ornate as a Royal wedding cake. His face was as blank as a bearskin-capped guard at the gates of Buckingham Palace. Rejecting the temptation to shake him or stamp on his foot to get a reaction, Tegan entered her enormous, fancy kennel.

It was so _wasted_ on one Australian girl. If Nyssa had been with them, Tegan would have asked her to share. Two girls could have had pillow fights on the huge bed, or primped together in the vast bathroom. They could have tried on Gallifreyan styles. They could have had fun. Tegan had had to work on Nyssa quite a lot to get her to have fun. Now Nyssa was off curing lepers and Tegan was stuck here in a place where most people treated her as the Doctor’s exotic alien pet.

 

Three days later, she was starting to get cabin fever. No one had been actively rude to her, but the level of polite which says ‘go away, please’ was wearing on her nerves.

Was it Freudian to spend so much time in the bathroom? Was she trying to get rid of a human stench so that a Gallifreyan would talk to her as if she were more than a semi-housebroken animal? Not that the bathroom wasn’t interesting. It offered possibilities not far short of plastic surgery.

So here was Tegan Jovanka, primping in one of the fanciest, most thorough therapeutic=hygiene-fashion chambers ever devised for humanoid beings. Who would be the beneficiary of her efforts? Turlough? She could see his smirk hanging before her eyes. The Doctor? That white ball gown she’d once worn hadn’t impressed him. She’d never looked better in her life. He’d been more interested in finding fresh celery for his lapel. Andred and Leela? She wasn’t going to flirt with Andred; it was more than her life was worth to poach from Leela. And Leela wasn’t particularly… girly. Tegan’s looks would not impress Leela. Her gown had been dignified, simple, and comfortable. Tegan hadn’t crossed all of time and space in high heels to be comfortable now. She had her principles.

Tegan puttered about, trying out options in the bath under the computer’s indifferent guidance. She’d thought the Time Lords asexual, and maybe they were. _But I thought Gallifreyans weren’t interested in sex_ , she’d almost said. Of course, Leela and Andred weren’t merely throwing knives together. They were obviously lovers, a mated pair, so sex was still something that happened on Gallifrey. As for the Time Lord elite, if their minds were so far above sex, why had they noticed her neckline?

Tegan regarded her naked body in the full-length wall panel. It wasn’t a mirror. The view rotated showing her backside. She fluffed her short hair, pleased at the rich red highlights. She’d been washed, creamed, massaged, and polished until her skin gleamed like ivory satin. The cosmetics had been applied to her face with the mathematical precision of a Bach fugue. She could barely tell she was wearing any, the final effect was so natural. “What I want to know,” she inquired of the unfeeling universe, “is why there isn’t a bath like this on the TARDIS yet it has room for two swimming pools?”

The automated systems in here had no great appreciation of rhetorical questions. “The Lord President’s time capsule is an obsolete type 40 device which lacks many amenities built into later versions.” The digitized voice was low-key, like the voice of an extremely discreet butler.

“That’s just like him.”

Tegan wrapped herself up in a lovely plush scarlet dressing gown. It felt deliciously warm and soft against her freshly washed skin. She could tell she was going to get spoiled by all this luxury in no time flat, but she wanted it all the same. Tegan felt she was owed a little spoiling.

One large room of her apartment had an actual window. She hadn’t noticed it until she’d seen morning sunlight streaming through it. The panes were frosted. The Presidential garden was on the other side. “So how do I get into the garden, then?” Tegan wasn’t quite comfortable talking to the computer. She felt a little too much as if she were talking out loud to herself. An indicator light glowed discreetly over a doorway set into an alcove. Tegan opened the door and found winter on her toes.

White and still, the landscape spread before her. At first glance, it looked like a wilderness of snow-laden trees. Then she spotted the stone planters and benches. The formal garden elements were laid out in the manner of a park. A flagstone path appeared before her feet, evaporating the snow and generating warmth her toes could feel. She took a step outside. Though her breath smoked on the air, the stone as warm as a hearth when the fire is blazing.

More bare stones appeared, an invitation Tegan accepted. The sky was a mass of clouds, soft golden grey like billows of wood smoke. No wind blew. No figure moved other than her own. She walked out a few paces and looked over her shoulder. She could see other doorways leading out into this space. The garden must be available to all the apartments on this side of the Citadel. Only its highest spires topped the trees of this garden. Weren’t they high in the air? Shouldn’t the air be Everest thin? 

There must be an edge. Tegan didn’t want to walk in the snow, but she tried to indicate by walking on one side of the stones in which direction she wanted to go. The systems in this place were designed to anticipate need, and the path obligingly opened itself. It wound through the trees. They parted onto a snowy overlook with a vista of mountains. 

Tegan had never been afraid of heights. She walked to the ornamental fence at the edge of the drop and sat on the rim to look down. The stone warmed under her bum. She must be thousands of meters high; far below her were other such open spaces riding the shoulders of the Citadel. None were above. Here she stood at the peak of Gallifrey’s power, on sufferance of the Doctor’s authority.

She felt very tiny. She felt a little dizzy. And she had a perverse urge to spit. It was very cold, but the chill was only now starting to creep up past the hem of Tegan’s robe. After a couple of minutes more her skin shivered into gooseflesh.

Try as she might, she could not spot anyone moving below. Weren’t the citizens at all interested in the outside? How could they live without windows?

Footsteps approached her perch. “You needn’t be afraid of falling. There’s a force screen.”

“Good morning, Turlough. Lovely view. Presidential, even.”

“And cold. What are you doing out here not even dressed? I came to find you.”

“What for?” Tegan turned around, leaning back on her hands a little. She’d always loved to be up high ever since her first airplane ride and the absence or presence of the force screen did not concern her. It explained the air pressure, though.

“You have a visitor. One Keludar of the Patrexeans, who has offered to take us to visit the Academy.”

Tegan blinked. Keludar did not lack for nerve. Then she blinked again. “Take us?”

“Very friendly chap. Acted like you and he are already best friends.” Turlough leavened his words with generous irony.

“I only met him once, when I was out with Andred and Leela.” Oo, mistake. Turlough could scent defensiveness like a shark did blood.

“He only asked for you at first, but included me as well, since I was there and the Doctor seemed rather doubtful.”

Tegan’s chin jutted out. “He asked the Doctor for permission?” She didn’t know quite why she was angry, and she didn’t care to examine the reason, but angry she was.

Turlough rubbed the corner of his jaw. “I believe he said something about wishing the Doctor to be sure you—we--had adequate escort.”

Tegan stood up and started walking back to her suite. “And what did the Doctor say?”

“He was a little surprised, but he thanked Keludar for making the offer as he wasn’t sure when he’d have time to do it himself.” Turlough followed her. “So you don’t wish to go? The Academy sounds like it would be one of the more interesting places to see on Gallifrey.”

“Oh, I want to go all right,” said Tegan grimly. “I’ll be out as soon as I’m dressed. I won’t be long.”

“All right then,” Turlough said. He sounded distinctly amused. Tegan would have tried flinging a snowball at him, but Turlough was skilled in ducking. No point, really.

 

Back in her room, Tegan ceremoniously addressed the magic closet. “I need something to wear to visit the Academy.”

The door panel glowed into life with an image of her wearing a skirt and jacket outfit of deep red trimmed at sleeve and skirt edge with a narrow band of tawny fabric of a napped texture like suede or velvet. The image rotated, showing that the jacket had an attached hood lined with the same material. When it showed the front again, the jacket was open revealing a cream colored shirt. The skirt flared below the knees, and paired with ankle boots.

“Higher heels, and I’ll take it,” Tegan said, determined to add her signature touch to Gallifreyan style. The door slid open and the closet produced the outfit shown. There weren’t any undergarments offered; there never were, and Tegan kept finding her imagination wandering to what various Gallifreyans were (not) wearing under their clothes.

The shirt felt especially pleasant against her bare skin. The fabric had a silky quality and the cut subtly flattered her build. It was tempting to wear it without the jacket, but Gallifreyans seemed to regard the lack of layers of clothes to be the mark of a savage. There were limits to how far she was willing to go to fit in, but it hadn’t been a week yet.

“Play your cards close to the vest,” she told herself wryly, straightening her collar. She put on the boots and walked a few steps to test the fit, the footing, and the give of the skirt. Tegan fluffed her hair and went out to meet her escort. And Turlough.

There was a common antechamber to their set of suites. Turlough and Keludar were there talking together when she joined them. “Sorry to hold you up. I wasn’t expecting anyone this morning.”

Keludar smiled at her. “When one plans a surprise, one should be pleased that the surprisee is indeed surprised. There are so few surprises on Gallifrey that they are undoubtedly worth waiting for.”

Turlough raised both eyebrows to maximum incredulity level, and Tegan had to work hard to ignore him.


	4. Chapter 4

The Academy constituted a knobby extrusion from the base of the Citadel proper. The entire structure was devoted to the upbringing of young Gallifreyans, but only a few of them would succeed in qualifying as Time Lords. Only the elite took the advanced training.

 

They stood on a balcony overlooking a broad plaza. It was basically an indoor education mall: the quad of a university set under its roof. Gallifreyan interior architecture fostered the feeling of being inside, yet built up, grandiosely, to prevent claustrophobia. Curtains of light hung down from ceiling recesses, diffusing as they neared the ground but concealing whether their source was artificial or sunshine.

 

“Contrary to what impressions you may have gained, the Academy does not foster homogeneity of thought. That would be pointless. To advance in the sciences, the Academy looks for creative young minds and encourages them to expand idiosyncratically. It is our culture that is hidebound. Because of the tremendous power Gallifrey possesses, we are schooled to act from a base of reason, not react from emotion. That’s why Time Lord parties are so very boring, except for the parts where they’re plotting to kill each other.” Keludar smiled at Turlough. “Unless I’m wrong and that part is boring as well? How many people want to kill the Doctor? So far, that is, not a total count. I’m sure some of them can dissemble adequately.”

 

Tegan didn’t know what to make of his teasing, only that she didn’t approve of treating assassination humorously. Especially the Doctor’s.

 

Turlough grimaced. “There are a few who plainly wish he’d drop dead and forget to regenerate.”

 

“I’d worry more about poor Chancellor Flavia. She has to do the dirty work while the Doc—pardon, the Lord President, prattles about reform.”

 

Tegan was stewing. She wanted to attack Keludar’s words, but she also agreed with him in part. This place didn’t want to change. The Doctor was preaching to the sinners, not the choir, and the spirit wasn’t moving them.

 

“She sounds like the only sensible person around, then. I’ve only met her once, but she has… dignity, without being pompous.”

 

Keludar eyed her like a cat watching a mouse hole. “It’s rare for a woman to rise that high. Whether it is a matter of numerical percentages or ancient bias is a matter of debate.”

 

Turlough said coldly, “Chancellor Flavia strikes me as highly competent and diligent in her duties. Gallifrey is lucky she was there to be a voice of common sense after Borusa’s fall.”

 

“You don’t have a down on the lady, do you, Keludar?”

 

“My dear offworld friends—I may call you friends, may I not, at least for the day? You are at the Academy. This is a place where all questions are debated.” Keludar spread his hands theatrically. “Not answered, but definitely debated ad infinitum, ad nauseum.”

 

“You often sicken me, Keludar.” A student in Prydonian colors approached. He was a little shorter than average, with curly black hair, dark skin, and eyes the color of sherry. “I am sorry that you have come here only to have Keludar stuff your ears with the pap he calls ironic commentary. His attempt to play the jester’s part is pitiful when compared to genuine examples of the archetype.”

 

“Ambirren, what would I do without you to counterpoint my wit? I shine in your company. Allow me to present you to Tegan Jovanka and Vislor Turlough, guests of the Lord President. Esteemed guests, meet Ambirren, pride of the Prydonians. This promising youth is certain to pass his final exams with glowing colors and be the highest ranking Time Lord candidate of the class.” Keludar delivered this intro with his usual cynical gloss.

 

Tegan had had enough. “So are you two pals or enemies or what? I think you don’t know yourselves which it is.”

 

Turlough stifled a laugh, but not his smirk.

 

Ambirren raised an eyebrow. His round face and striking coloring ought to have made him seem warm and approachable, but his attitude was only polite, not friendly.

 

Keludar laughed, and for a wonder it sounded real. “Why, Tegan, Gallifrey needs all the Time Lords she can breed up. Why should we be rivals, or friends? Perhaps you will tell us which we are, once you know us better.” He offered his arm.

 

 

 

Being escorted around the Academy by the two students was like visiting Purgatory with an angel on one side and a devil on the other. Tegan wasn’t sure which was which. Keludar made her laugh with his quips and his own willingness to laugh. Ambirren was a better guide. He had a gift for explaining advanced scientific concepts so that Tegan got the gist of what was being said. She didn’t ask many questions. Turlough did, his pale face as animated with excitement as she’d ever seen it. Tegan wondered if he dreamed of staying on Gallifrey and studying here, of becoming the first non-Gallifreyan Time Lord.

 

It seemed natural that Turlough and Ambirren should walk ahead together, leaving Tegan and Keludar to tag behind.

 

Keludar bent close to her ear; the breath of his words stirred Tegan’s hair. “Lord President’s pet,” he murmured insinuatingly.

 

Thinking he meant her, Tegan immediately glared at him.

 

Keludar grinned. “Not you—unless you are. Are you the Doctor’s pet?”

 

Tegan snorted, not impressed by his provocation. “Don’t try to so hard to bait me. Who do you mean?”

 

He indicated Ambirren with a brief hand wave. The pieces fell into place. Ambirren had inserted himself on this trip to curry favor with the Doctor. Politics, again. Now she wondered if Turlough’s bright-eyed reaction was sincere or a pose.

 

They were standing on another overlook, a footbridge passing by a broad open space framed by greenery. It was full of Gallifreyans engaging in organized sport. They were all short. “What am I looking at? Why are they all so… small… bloody hell. Those are children.”

 

The nearest child, a girl, looked up towards Tegan with an air of cool consideration. “What is bloody hell?” she inquired, fixing Tegan with an intent gaze. Only a child would pick up the exact words she wasn’t supposed to hear and store them for later use.

 

“It is a place of eternal torment, much like the oubliettes on Shada. Only noisier and messier,” Keludar explained helpfully.

 

“It sounds primitive and disgusting,” the girl said dismissively. She transferred her gaze briefly to Tegan, as if extending the same opinion to her, and then went back to her ball bouncing game.

 

Keludar led Tegan away while she was still sputtering. “Sorry. The newly Loomed tend to be narrow-minded. It’s the result of the standardized education process. Their brains are being imprinted with basic knowledge. There’s not much difference between Loomlings.”

 

“Loomlings? I don’t understand.” Tegan knew already that she wasn’t going to be happy once she understood.

 

 

 

Tegan cornered the Doctor in his private office and had at him. “They were playing like they were posing for pictures, not like they were enjoying themselves. What kind of childhood is that?” Tegan couldn’t help pleading with the Doctor. She didn’t know what she expected him to do about the millennia old customs of his planet. She had come to him as a last resort, being more and more upset the more she thought about those stolid little faces.

 

“They didn’t laugh or smile or run or shout or hit each other. I know they’re being raised to be ethical, but what about learning to enjoy … just being alive?”

 

“They were exercising, Tegan.” The Doctor settled into the high-backed chair behind his desk. The chair and desk were massive things. The material might have been wood, but it was carved so precisely and with such smooth grain that it might instead have been have been stone. It was black and gleaming and massive and said that the owner was a Very Important Person, Indeed.

 

Tegan walked around behind it and right into the Doctor’s space. She was not going to be a penitent before authority here. “Exercising? Why bother? Is there a Gallifreyan football league?”

 

“They are being fed massive amounts of information. We are still flesh and blood beings, Tegan, despite our advanced science. They need to integrate their knowledge with physical experience. The bouncing of a ball is as much an experiment in applied physics as it is a game.”

 

The Doctor ran his hands slowly through his hair. He looked suddenly so weary that Tegan almost regretted bringing the subject up. She noticed that his chair, as ornate as it was, had no padding at all. “The seat of the mighty looks pretty hard,” Tegan said, hoping to make him smile.

 

“What?” He lifted his head, a smile sneaking on to his lips as if expecting to be caught trespassing. “Oh, this old thing. It was commissioned by a President with an expanded idea of his own importance. It indeed had cushions, but one of his successors removed them. He said that the chair and desk performed their function well, but that the cushions encouraged the occupant to feel too comfortable.”

 

Tegan put out a hand, meaning to pat his shoulder and say something cheerful, but the chair got in the way. It was throne-like, and did not encourage a close approach to its occupant. She’d practically have to stick her hand in his face to do it.

 

“Getting up from the chair and getting out from behind the desk sound like healthy ideas to me. Doctor… I’ve seen you play games and have fun. Didn’t you do that as a child?”

 

“I learned it later, Tegan. I understand that our reproductive arrangement is strange to you, but childhood is not a one-size-fits-all concept. It wasn’t so long before your time that human children were held to adult standards at very young ages.”

 

“I know, but the Looms… they’re never even babies.” The children were removed from the incubators at roughly the equivalent human age of eleven. Tegan tried to keep down tears. Aliens, they were aliens. It was wrong of her to expect them to be like humans. She looked at the Doctor’s deceptively youthful face. He’d never been a helpless baby, never been held and rocked and bathed and played with. No one had tested the grip of his tiny fist, or laughed when he tried to suck his own toes.

 

“It must seem very strange to you. I’ve met a few babies. They were rather charming.”

 

Tegan heard the sympathy in his voice. She should leave him alone and not trouble him with this any more. Only, “But Leela and Andred, they’re… together. I mean, if you have the Looms…” Tegan trailed off seeing where the conversation was headed. “Never mind. None of my business, after all, hey? You look dead tired, Doctor. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

 

She started to back away, but the Doctor rose from his chair and restrained her, his hands on her shoulders. “Tegan, this is culture shock. Humans and Gallifreyans have both similarities and differences, and even after centuries humans still surprise me. I have been exposed to the customs of thousands of different worlds, and I am not immune to the fallacy of expecting people who look like me to be like me.” Smiling, he patted her shoulders. “You know enough of the Australian Aborigines to be fluent in one of their languages. Aren’t they different from the people of European stock that you come from?”

 

“Yeah, but that doesn’t really help here.” Tegan slipped away from under his hands, giving him a rueful smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll cope. Indestructible, that’s me.”

 

“I shan’t argue. Only remember, Tegan, you aren’t a bother. You’re my friend. It’s interesting for me to see my world through your eyes. Turnabout is fair play and all that. I’ve certainly been free with my opinions of Earth customs. I expect you to be no less frank.”

 

That brought a laugh from Tegan. “You can count on that.”

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

“With Ambirren and Keludar it’s snipe, snipe, snipe, all the time cutting each other down. I thought the qualifying process for Time Lords was objective. Is there some sort of quota?” It had been worth the long trip to get to the distant region of the Citadel where Leela and Andred’s apartment was located. The Doctor saw the interlocking complexities of issues; Leela could cut them down to their basics. Tegan liked hearing from both of them.

“They succeed, and fail, on their own merits,” Leela confirmed.

“Time Lord candidates are under considerable pressure,” Andred reminded them. “If they qualify, they will receive the Rassilon Imprimatur, which gives them the ability to regenerate and a far greater lifespan than any ordinary Gallifreyan. The closer the students get to the final evaluation, the more some of them act up. Usually it’s some freakish prank. I understand that the Doctor’s graduating class was notorious for the pranks they pulled. They are given a lot of leeway; after all, they are the future of Gallifrey. Sadly, some candidates have committed suicide on failure to qualify. That hasn’t happened for a long time. Those who are so mentally unstable are weeded out far earlier.”

Tegan sat up straight. Those would have been loaded words on Earth. “How much earlier?” she demanded. She could see right away that Andred did not like being pinned down on this question.

“I’m not a geneticist, Tegan,” he demurred. “But of course, genetic patterns that give rise to inherent mental dysfunction are removed from the Looms. We can’t condemn someone to be born flawed.”

“But you are condemning them to not be born at all.” Tegan couldn’t help saying the words. “I can’t believe it—sorry, I’m not blaming you. It’s just that I can see you still have the same sort of problems even though your science is thousands of years ahead of Earth science.”

“Millions of years,” Andred corrected.

“Science is useful for many things, but it does not tell us what is right and what is wrong,” Leela said solemnly. Not for the world would Tegan ever tell her that she sounded like a fortune cookie. To be in the same room with Leela was like finding a foothold of reality in the landscape of a nightmare. It wasn’t that what she said was so brilliant. She recognized and stated the obvious. Tegan used to think that was boring, but she was fervently glad of it now.

Leela was still speaking. “You should visit the Outside, Tegan. You would like that.”

“Is that anything like the Outback?”

“It is the wilderness of Gallifrey. Those Gallifreyans who have chosen to separate themselves from modern society live there. Occasionally, people have been deliberately made outcast.”

“Hippies,” Tegan said without thinking. They stared at her, and she explained. “It’s a term for people who choose to live a different lifestyle from the mainstream. They prefer a simpler life. You get people who choose out of principle, and then there are people who can’t get along in the system for whatever reason.”

“Here they are called Shobogans. Like the Citadel-dwellers they pursue wisdom, but they look within rather than without. If you like, I will arrange for you to visit them with me,” Leela offered.

“I’d like that,” Tegan said, even if she thought they sounded like a bunch of navel-gazers. “The Citadel may be as big as a mountain, but I’m feeling a little cooped up. A long hike sounds wonderful.” Tegan eyed Leela’s rangy form and hoped she could keep up with her.

 

Remembering the maps she saw on display in the Academy library, Tegan paid a visit. The section she wanted contained antique works. It held everything from stone tablets and parchment scrolls to metallic objects that reminded Tegan of transistors. She was glad to find the area quite deserted, so she could be ignorant in solitude. The maps were beautifully detailed, but of little use to her. She’d thought she’d be able to spot the Citadel, but she could not make it out. The labels were in a script that did not transform into English for her eyes.

“Old maps are the landscapes of our memories, reminding us that the route into the past is not solely a matter of travel by time capsule. I always think they’re lovely.”

Tegan looked up. Standing across the map table from her was an elderly man in a blue robe. Yellow embroidery edged the hems with the pattern of the seal of Rassilon, a design that had already become familiar. His shoulders stooped under the weight of his robes and the golden cowl looked oddly smooth atop a withered apple face. Under their hooded lids, his eyes were alert. He was the oldest looking person she’d seen so far on Gallifrey and one of the few to look at her as if she were something more than a biological specimen. “They’re incredibly detailed. I could imagine stepping onto them and finding myself in the real location.”

“What a droll notion, a map as a key for a transmat portal. Delightful. Pardon me, my dear young lady, but you are an alien, are you not?”

“Yes, I’m human, from the planet Earth.” Having heard no insult in his words, Tegan relaxed.

“Ah, yes, such a pretty little planet, with all that ocean. I’ve never understood why you call it Earth. Surely it’s more Water.” He peered at her, then smiled. “How rude of me not to introduce myself. I am Omicron, Professor Emeritus of galactigraphy and related sciences.” 

“I’m Tegan Jovanka. I’m… a guest of the President.”

Professor Omicron’s eyes narrowed in their deep pits. His eyebrows bristled. “I had thought Morbius was banished—good riddance, I said, I remember it clearly.”

“Um, sorry, don’t know any Morbius. The Doctor is the President now.” Tegan wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but he was clearly upset by it.

He immediately relaxed. “Much better. I hope you’re being treated well? Gallifreyans have a sad tendency to think of other sentients as savages hardly past kindling fire.”

“I’ve noticed. Now, what is galacky… gala…”

“Galactigraphy is the mapping of the continually shifting relationships of galaxies, their stars, and the worlds that orbit them. We call it that, galactigraphy, because the universe is even larger than Gallifreyan conception.” He put his hand flat on the map. “I cover vast spaces with my hand, yet it is no more within my grasp than if I held it up to the sky and covered the stars. There is no universography.” He chuckled. “Universography, such an awkward word.”

“But the Gallifreyans, the Time Lords… if you can time travel, can’t you really go anywhere? To the other side of the universe if you wanted?”

The Professor stroked his stole. “If you trace a path from one side of this map to the other, where will you end up?”

“If it’s a flat projection of the world, you’d end up where you began. Are you about to go into all that about the universe being curved? Because that makes my head ache.”

“Then perhaps we shan’t talk of it, if it troubles you. Is there some research I may assist you with, my dear?”

“Who is Morbius?” Tegan wondered vaguely if that was the Master’s real name.

“Someone best forgotten. Now, why were you looking at maps?” The Professor changed the subject firmly.

“I’m going to visit the Shobogans. I wanted to see what the land was like outside the Citadel, but I don’t see the Citadel on any of these maps.”

“They are too old. None of these maps represents the Citadel as it is today. However, the Citadel in an older form is on this very map. Right here.” Professor Omicron pointed to a mountain. It was small and unlabeled.

“But I thought the Citadel was built entirely. I mean, all created by building up, not building onto something.”

“That’s true enough. This mountain no longer exists. It was consumed in the construction of the Citadel, which has roots that reach deep into the mantle. Visiting the Shobogans, eh? I used to do so as a young fellow, when going Outside was not so frowned upon. Now I’m past it—I feel the cold too much.”

“So, go in summer,” Tegan said, wondering if Omicron was actually a Time Lord. The Doctor never seemed bothered by the cold.

“There is no more summer for me, my dear, but only a lingering winter. This is my last regeneration, you see. Sometimes I think the only thing that keeps me going is the look of surprise on people’s faces when they find out I’m still alive.” A mischievous grin made his face wrinkle like a raisin. “Also, having a nice hot posset in the evenings. The sensation of warmth slowly seeping through my body is one I did not appreciate as a young man.” He peered at her again. “Or perhaps I did, come to think of it. You are being treated politely? You’re sure?”

“People are polite, yes, but you are kind.” Tegan smiled at the elderly Time Lord. She didn’t have the nerve to hug him, but his kindness warmed her the way his posset did him.

“It’s not a well known practice these days, but worth cultivating. Now, come with me and I’ll show you the land outside the Citadel as it is today, and where the Shobogans dwell. _That_ is not on the official map, and I’m quite sure the Shobogans prefer it that way.”

Despite his age, and Tegan couldn’t bring herself to ask outright what that was, Professor Omicron walked with a steady stride. It was unhurried, but it got him places.

He showed her a projection of Gallifrey, first the whole globe, then piercing down into the landscape. This wasn’t a symbolic map, but a live representation of the world. Following the view it made Tegan feel like a giant whose great strides crossed valleys and rivers.

“Shut the Eye of Harmony! He lives!” Keludar had come up behind them. Apparently he had meant it that he did like to surprise people.

Professor Omicron chuckled. “You never tire of that joke, do you? Of course, neither do I. I see you already know this, mmm, this lovely young lady. I hope someone has mentioned to you how lovely you are, Lady Tegan?”

The title startled Tegan right out of speech.

“I have, Professor. But better than being lovely, she is unpredictable. I never expected to find her here.”

“Leela’s taking me Outside. I wanted to look at the maps.” Tegan wasn’t sure how to respond to either of them, so she let the compliment pass.

Keludar raised an eyebrow. “You’ve only been here a few days. That’s not nearly time enough to see the high points of the Citadel, and you already want to leave?”

“Leela made it sound very appealing,” she said, not liking his tone.

“Leela, Leela, Leel—Ah! Yes, Commander Andred’s lady. I thought I knew the name, but I haven’t met her.” Professor Omicron put his hand on her arm lightly, a brief touch that made her turn to him. “I want to reassure you that though I compliment your appearance I do not mistake the map for the territory.” He smiled at her. “I have a feeling that should I come to know it, that I would esteem it greatly. I think I shall retire, now, but I hope that you will come to visit me after your trip and tell me how you fared.”

“It would be an honor, Professor Omicron. Thanks for your help, you’ve been marvelous.”

Out of respect, Tegan waited for the Professor to leave before her own departure. Keludar stayed her with a hand on her arm. “Old maps and wild lands? Don’t you have such things on your own world that you need to seek them out here?”

Tegan frowned at him. “I like being out in the world. This place is one big hothouse. For all one knows in here, the Outside might as well be winter all the time.”

“Is it not? It’s certainly a cultural wasteland. This is Gallifrey, home of the Time Lords. There are noble savages living the primitive lifestyle on many worlds, but only Gallifrey is Queen of Time. There is so much more to see here, Tegan, than there is out there.” His voice was impassioned, but though he sounded like he meant what he said, Tegan felt he wasn’t saying what he meant.

“It will still be here when I get back, right?” She pulled her arm free and he did not try to keep his grip.

“Certainly. No matter how long you’re away.” That was nasty of Keludar, no doubt about it.

Tegan turned away, then right back. “Who is Morbius?” Keludar might be a child compared to Omicron, but she bet he’d know the name. She could tell by the way his face blanked that she was right.

“He’s a proscribed topic,” he said, glancing in the direction Omicron had gone.

“But wasn’t he President, once,” Tegan inquired slyly. “Isn’t that a big chunk of history to ignore?”

“Ask your dear friend the Doctor, then,” Keludar said, suddenly regaining his composure with a smile she did not trust in the slightest.

“So you mean you don’t know? It’s forbidden, so you’ve been a good boy and you know nothing about this Morbius?” Why was she badgering him? That was a good question. Why ask him to break a rule for her, when whoever Morbius was or had been could not possibly mean anything to her?

“Mmmm. Perhaps I should tell you what I know, simply to keep you from prying. For your own good, of course.” Keludar paused, wearing a contemplative frown.

Or was that a pose, not a pause? Tegan’s curiosity didn’t care. “I’ll owe you one,” she said recklessly.

“As a favor to you, then. Morbius was formerly Lord President of Gallifrey. He was stripped of his rank and exiled. I’m not sure what they thought they were doing to exile a would-be conqueror. Shows a lot of concern for younger races, does it not? He promptly started a war, then the High Council had to catch him and execute him.”

“That’s… awful, but why is it a secret? Shouldn’t he serve as an example of what happens even to an erring… President…” Tegan suddenly didn’t like where this was going.

Keludar grinned at her. “It’s not discussed, so I can’t tell you their reasoning, but I think they didn’t want him to be an example. It was never ‘made public’, but Morbius used to select students for his sexual gratification. When Loomlings first leave the Creche, their minds are vulnerable to meddling.”

Tegan was horrified. It had been a shock to realize Gallifreyans were sexual, even if they weren’t very active about engaging in sex. To hear that a Time Lord could reach the highest office and pursue that level of vice was unthinkable. Worse, it was human, and it occurred to her that asexuality might be a good thing when applied to the habits of a race that could conquer galaxies.

“Maybe they wanted to keep his victims’ names private,” she said dully. Keludar was no longer smiling; she might have had to hit him otherwise.

“I don’t know. I’m a mere student. Ask your friend the President if you want to know more. And do enjoy your… visit to the Outside.” Keludar sounded as if he had been going to say something more barbed, but let the opportunity pass. His remote gaze would have suited the statue of a Greek god. He took a step to leave, paused, bowed to her, and walked away.

Tegan thought of the map of old Gallifrey. Where she stood now had once been at the foot of a mountain. The Citadel had devoured the mountain, and whatever name the people of Gallifrey had given it in their youth was meaningless. The bones of the mountain still informed the spires raised by the Lords of Time. Secrets may remain unspoken, but not unknown.


	6. Chapter 6

The trip to the Outside started out with Leela giving her a knife. Tegan knew instantly she was going to have fun. She wondered cheerfully what the Doctor would say if he saw her and Leela bonding over a comparison of knife handling techniques. While Leela definitely possessed greater skill, she clearly approved of Tegan’s early training.

Her first sight of the Outside was gardens. Rank after rank of force wall cubes in terraced levels lay like jewels of a multi-stranded necklace. Leela led her halting steps through the maze. It wasn’t laid out for strolling. Tegan kept stopping to gape at sights, despite the icy winds. “I’m sorry to hold us up. There’s so much to look at.”

“Yes, there is. When I first came here, I thought I would never tire of looking at these gardens.”

“And you have now?”

Leela came to a stop. “The Time Lords collected unusual life forms. Many of these gardens are from dead worlds. They only exist here, held in Time Loops so that the life within never changes, never grows, never becomes something more. They are memories that belong to no one. I do not wish to be made sad for something I cannot fix. I let their beauty make me glad. Then I live in this world, in this time, while it is mine to have.”

Tegan looked out over the expanse of cubes that fringed the Citadel. “It’s a butterfly collection.”

Leela’s thumb stroked her cheek. “Tears will chafe your skin in this wind.” Her thumb had a rough edge of callous.

Once they’d left the area of force walled gardens, Tegan got her first real look at the unvarnished Gallifrey. She’d expected snow, but the ground was bare except for a few scraggly plants. The wind was cold and dry; it bit at her nose and lips. Something about the shapes of the land suggested the work of water to her. She could imagine that years ago, a great flood had poured out onto the land, washing away plants and topsoil and leaving slag heaps of debris. It was a wasteland, but when they got farther away from the Citadel it became desert. Leela had said it would take most of the day to reach the dwellings of the Shobogans.

“How can anyone live out here?”

“The Shobogans dwell beyond the desert, among streams, forests, and grasslands. There are edible plants and game animals. We carry food pills for our own use and as a guest gift. For those who are older, or unwell, food pills are welcome.”

Crossing the desert was an ordeal that Tegan was glad of. Her apartment in the Citadel was almost too comfortable. The orange sky and the tawny desert battered her between them. No pretense was possible. One footfall after another; one breath after another: these were the essentials of life. Leela’s cloak blended with the colors of the land so that she was almost invisible and Tegan could imagine herself alone.

Beyond the desert, she was promised water, and all that lived where water flowed.

She thought she saw water in the distance, but Leela shook her head. “That is a forest. The leaves are silvery and do not fall with the seasons. In the branches live winged snakes with black and white fur that helps them hide among the leaves. The Shobogans hunt them for meat as well as their fur to wear.”

In winter, there wasn’t much difference between the desert and its edge. They were nearly to their destination before Tegan felt grass under her feet. It was short, brown, dry and coarse, but it clung to the ground in the way that living things endured. It was worn away where a path followed the edge of a river. Flat stones had been set in it to improve footing. This typified the Shobogan style of habitation: simple, practical, and austere. When they came to the village, the structures consisted of stone, wood, and turf that took advantage of the shapes of the landscape and blended into them. It reminded Tegan of the megaliths of Britain: the artlessness of stone, and the artfulness of their position that were laid out for reasons clear to the builders and obscure to others.

No one challenged them. Tegan saw no guards, and only a few people. They plainly knew Leela, but they did not call to her and she did not pause to speak to them. Leela went straight to a Shobogan leader, whom she introduced to Tegan as Arand. He made them welcome of the settlement, accepting their gift of supplies. He brewed for them a hot, bitter drink of herbs. Tegan recognized the scent. It was a tea she’d had in the Citadel, but there it had been sweetened. He said little. He asked no questions. The stillness held Tegan within it. She held her questions and paid attention. 

The Shobogan village brought home to Tegan the true gulf between her culture and Gallifrey’s. She had been prepared for primitive conditions, told that the Shobogans avoided technology. This was not entirely true. They owned a few pieces of equipment for environmental monitoring. The village was built near a volcanic site of natural hot springs. There was plenty of warmth and clean running water, the two great luxuries of the primitive world. Her Aborigine friends would have moved right on in. The simplicity of Shobogans life was built on a great fund of knowledge in the area of natural sciences that ensured basic comfort. Once the needs of the Body were met, the Shobogans devoted themselves to the Mind. It was an intentional community, not a tribe. There were no families. There were no children.

 

“They are Shobogans, but they are still Gallifreyans,” Leela reminded her.

“That was clear when the tailor mentioned multiquadratic equations for the functional topography of bipeds.”

As Tegan lolled in the hot mud pool with Leela, she remembered inviting Turlough to come with them. He had declined, with ill-concealed horror. He hated the cold. Andred had duties to attend to, so the trip was girls only.

“They’d call this a health spa, back home. People would pay to come here.” The mud had a silky texture, like very thick hot cocoa. It also smelt of sulfur, but one got used to that. It was part of the experience.

“I brought Andred here soon after we bonded. He thought I was mad to want to cover us in mud.” She smiled. “He liked it, of course, once he tried it.”

“Is it very different, your tribe? You said the Sevateem was originally part of a scientific expedition that crashed on your world.”

“My tribe would think this place a reward from the spirits. They lost their knowledge of science. But perhaps now that the evil Xoanon is gone, they will reunite with the Tesh and live in peace together.”

“That’s kind of like Gallifrey, isn’t it? The technology Haves in the Citadel, and the Have-Nots out here.” Tegan smoothed a fresh layer of soft mud down her bare leg.

“The people of Gallifrey are divided in their hearts. Some of them embrace the way of the Machine above all else, and others believe that Spirit is greater than Metal.”

The two women sat in the mud a while longer. Leela was silent, and Tegan wondered if her silence concealed as many questions as Tegan’s.

“Let us go rinse off. There is a waterfall to rid us of most of the mud. Then we may soak off the rest in the hot spring.”

Leela crawled naked out of the mud. Tegan was similarly naked. It had taken no time at all to be comfortable in her skin with Leela. In her own way, Leela was extremely polite. She didn’t have the kind of inhibitions about nudity that made being naked together uncomfortable. Tegan and Leela were a more natural match as friends than she’d been with Nyssa, who’d been rather prim. She found herself telling Leela about Nyssa.

“Your friend sounds very brave and great of heart to undertake such a task of healing.”

Tegan nodded. “She is all that. More than that, she was always… royal. I loved Nyssa because she was so different from anything I am. She had qualities I admire but don’t think I could ever possess.”

Leela raked her hair back from her face, regarding Tegan with those round blue eyes. “She was your lover?”

“Oh, no, she was hardly grown, and besides, I … well, I like men that way, not women.”

“What of Turlough? The two of you are close in age.”

“No, he’s not my type and I’m not his type. We get along all right, though. Goodness knows I’d rather be on his side than against him.”

Leela nodded. “Yes, there is cunning in his eyes, but also loyalty to the Doctor.”

“That’s the way the Doctor is. Looking back, he tamed Turlough like taming a dingo. It was lost on me until it happened. Then it was obvious. Maybe it’s one of the best things the Doctor’s ever done, helping Turlough get free of the Black Guardian. Not by threats, not by tricks, but by willingness to be a friend.”

“He is good at that. He did the same with me.” Leela chuckled. “Did he not tame you as well?”

There was no insinuation in Leela’s voice as there had been in Keludar’s, but Tegan found herself on her feet, her heart pumping rage through her veins. Leela did not flinch, only looked up at her. “Why does that make you so angry? You are primitive. There is little difference between you and me to the Time Lords. Even your red-haired friend who is from an advanced world is still regarded as primitive here.”

Tegan deflated. After a moment, she slipped down into the water. “Sorry, that caught me on the raw. Keludar said something like that.”

“Be careful of him. He wants something from you. I think he is not even sure himself what he wants.”

“I suppose so,” Tegan slumped down further in the water, pulling her knees in. “It’s nice to be sought out by someone who wants to spend time with you. I like him, most of the time. It’s odd. I’m not even sure if he cares if I like him or not.”

“Have you asked him?” Leela put no judgment in her voice, but Tegan winced all the same. 

“I’ll do that when I get back.”

“Do not act, or fail to act, from fear. You weaken your position, and those of Gallifrey, for all of their disdain of emotion, will still use it against you. Water takes the downward path. It is efficient, and efficiency is a virtue here.”

Tegan and Leela washed each other’s hair. The lotion for this purpose had an herbal scent and rinsed out cleanly. Leela shampooed Tegan first. When Tegan had her hands gently kneading Leela’s scalp, she asked in a low voice, “Leela, are you and Andred ever going to have children?”

Leela did not answer for a long moment. When Tegan was done with her hair, she ducked under water and came up facing her. Tegan wondered if she’d just wrecked a new friendship. That would be record speed for her, and it wasn’t an uncommon happening in her life, with her mouth.

“I do not wish to have children where there are no other children. Loomlings are not children. You have seen there are not even children here among the Shobogans.” Her voice was calmer than her bleak expression.

“I’m sorry. It’s none of my business,” Tegan began, but was interrupted by Leela.

“It is. You ask because you are living among the Gallifreyans and you cannot tell of these strangers who is friend and who is foe. The Doctor is busy, and you and Turlough are not close. You are lonely in the flesh.”

Tegan felt more transparent than the water.

“Gallifrey is a lonely place, Tegan. The people here rarely touch.”

 

Leela and Tegan didn’t spend much time actually in the village, or even with the Shobogans. They used the village as a base for exploring the wilderness. Or to be more precise, Leela led Tegan to various sites and showed her nature, Gallifreyan style.

There weren’t any large predators on this continent. One of the continents was uninhabited, a nature preserve. There weren’t many animals near the village. “If only you were here in the summer, I could show you more,” Leela said, while they were hiking. “There are few plants to be seen at this time of year.”

There also was little snow. Her lofty garden had more snow than she ever saw at one time here at ground level. That did not stop it from being icy cold and achingly dry. Tegan had been given thermal clothing that kept her body warm, but her lips tended to chap from the dry wind. “It’s so quiet. I don’t think there’s any place on Earth where you could go and not see airplanes. If one of us got hurt here it would be pretty rough getting back.”

“That is true. The Shobogans always go out in pairs, and tell others where they are going.”

“They should bring those children, the Loomlings, Outside once in a while.” Tegan could hear the capital ‘O’ in her voice; she must be going native. “Let them experience natural surroundings. It would do them good to walk on an uneven surface, feel a chilly breeze or get a bit of sunburn.”

Leela touched her shoulder. “They trouble you still.”

Both women looked over to the spires of the Citadel. It was a grandly impressive sight, soaring as high as any mountain. Surely, Tegan only imagined that she could see the tiny protrusion of the Presidential garden. It was probably on the other side, anyway. “They aren’t hugged, they aren’t loved… are they? Do they get an allotted amount of love every day? Does someone go around and give them precisely measured cuddles?”

Hearing the hysteria in her voice, Tegan put a hand to her mouth to hold in her anger. This was not a battle she could win.

“It is their way, Tegan. You will not move the Time Lords with the words your heart speaks. They only respond to logic. It is better if you do not think of them as children. They are Loomlings.”

Tegan turned to Leela; they hugged each other spontaneously. Leela’s cheek was as warmly human as Tegan’s own.

Leela lowered her voice though there likely wasn’t anyone within two miles of them to hear her words. “Touch has meaning for them. I could feel Andred’s response to me in our first meeting. But he is young and I think many of them are dead inside. They may as well be machines.”

“Not the Doctor.”

Leela pulled back from the hug and smiled at her. “I would have never traveled with him if he was.”

The Shobogans held a feast for them the day before Tegan and Leela left. Everyone ate real food. The sight of roasted meat had become strange to Tegan, but her nose remembered the scent and her mouth watered. They played music on handmade instruments. Their dances were group efforts, meant to foster community bonds but they welcomed Tegan and Leela among them. Humans would have paired off, but when Tegan went to bed, there were still nearly as many people left as at the start. The Shobogans might have little interest in sex, but they did like to dance. Tegan did not share her opinion that the two were close to the same thing.


	7. Chapter 7

The trip back didn’t seem real. There was no getting lost in the desert with the Citadel’s spires piercing the sky. All they had to do was head towards it, all they had to do was watch it expand before them. If the TARDIS had been turned inside out and dropped in a big heap, Tegan thought it might have looked like this: not infinite in size but incalculable. She entered this palace of technological achievement through a small, human-sized door. It was not blue, but she felt properly cut down to size.

The first thing Tegan did when she got back to her apartment was to celebrate a joyous and deeply personal reunion with her hygiene chamber. She luxuriated in a scented bath that was kept at the temperature she preferred, and felt the pulsing water move over her stiff muscles. She could hardly keep her eyes open while the sonic field dried her off. 

Tegan didn’t remember anything after her bath, but she woke up face down in her pillow and ready to resume the high life. Dressed and breakfasted, she tried to drop in on the Doctor, but the Doctor was out; likewise Turlough. How typical. No one wanted to see her vacation slides. Keludar would probably be glad to have her back, but he’d been scornful of her trip. She wanted to talk to someone who would listen.

That left Professor Omicron.

Technology assisted the process, but it was still a long trip from her suite at the heart of the Capitol to the Academy library. Once Tegan got there, she realized she had no way to find Professor Omicron unless she wanted to camp out in the map room. Obviously, the thing to do was to ask the librarian on duty.

Library personnel reported to the office of the Keeper of the Matrix. Being a librarian on Gallifrey carried the kind of prestige that a human librarian could only dream of. 

“There is no such person.” The librarian frowned at her.

“I talked to him myself.” Tegan added, “He’s not dead,” figuring that might be the problem.

“Nonexistent persons can be neither dead nor living.” He did not sound merely indifferent, but almost outraged. “Kindly cease wasting the time of library personnel with student pranks.” The librarian walked away, leaving Tegan standing there astonished.

Tegan started hunting down Keludar. When she tried his contact code, he didn’t answer. It was that kind of day. Usually Keludar popped up out of nowhere, like he had a spy system in place watching for her. Perhaps, for once, he was actually attending class or revising? The student residence and class areas were strictly off limits to casual visitors. Tegan was angry and confused, but in a strict sense was still ‘casual.’ She was forced to linger in the public areas. In her childhood in Australia, she had turned over rocks to find scorpions. They would sit in the sunlight, stingers at the ready, radiating sullen malevolence. That’s how she felt, sulking about with poison bubbling under her tongue.

“So you’ve returned at last,” Keludar said from behind her.

He might have expected to surprise her, but she turned, temper bristling, to face him. “I asked about Professor Omicron at the library and they said he didn’t exist at all, alive or dead. What the hell is going on?”

“That’s not his real name, and no, I don’t know what it is. He’s rather like a ghost, except without being dead. I’m sure it’s very convenient for him. The librarians think it’s an old student joke. They all aspire to be Matrix technicians. It's a profession that encourages neither creativity nor imagination. It follows that they have no sense of humor.”

“He invited me to come tell him about my trip Outside.” Tegan didn’t care that she was whingeing.

Keludar raised an eyebrow. “I see where I am in your notification list. Tell me, Tegan, have you gone native or are you persuaded of the joys of civilization? Don’t tell me you’re unmoved by the luxuries of an ambassadorial suite. Unless, perhaps, it’s actually uncomfortable in order to encourage ambassadors to leave. Some Time Lords have thought themselves quite clever.”

Tegan was in no mood to have Keludar’s wit honed on her. Why couldn’t he laugh outright instead of putting on a pose? If he wanted to fight, she could oblige.

“Is that what you tell yourself looking in the mirror? You know, I’ll miss wallowing in the mud. My civilized hygiene chamber has controls I’ve never tried to use, but I doubt they include mud baths.”

“No, nor meals of animal flesh. I should think it would provide skins to wear, if requested. Only don’t ask for the hides of the High Council. Were that possible, many a Time Lord would have been raw meat long since.” Keludar was seldom that crude. Tegan resented the edge to his voice.

She could do crude. “Trying to bring cannibalism back in fashion, Keludar? You do so like to be trendy, but maybe it was just bad taste.”

“Doubtless you found the Shobogans more to your taste, being not so ‘civilized.’” Keludar’s blue eyes were narrowed. She might be tempted to think it was jealousy, but Tegan suspected it was more about his ego than his heart.

“They were friendly. They welcomed me and threw me a farewell party. We danced, sang, and had this thing primitive humans call ‘fun.’ Tegan was not shy about troweling on thick layers of sarcasm.

“I’ve heard of what primitive humans consider to be fun. ‘Wallowing in the mud’ seems an unnecessarily crude way to describe it.”

“Are you jealous? Why else are you making such a fuss?”

“My dear Tegan, what cause have I to be jealous, were I to engage in such a barbaric emotion? Jealous? If I am, what should I do? Carry you off over my shoulder? Is that the kind of attention you desire from me?” He didn’t actually move nearer to Tegan, but his stance shifted and abruptly she felt threatened. Keludar was taller and more athletic than the average Time Lord.

“I want to know why I’m being subjected to an inquisition. What do you think we did out there? Stripped, painted our skins, danced around a fire and had an orgy? I don’t care if you’re four times my age, Kel, sometimes you are such a child. You need to remember something: those Outsiders are your kind. They’re Gallifreyans who chose a different way of life. They have the same basic education as any other Gallifreyan.”

“And what good does their education do them out there?” Keludar scoffed.

“You should go visit them and find out. Wallow in the mud. I’m sure someone will be glad to hold your head under for you,” Tegan snapped. She stormed home.

 

Hurricane Tegan gained strength on the trip. The Doctor had often failed to notice her moods. It seemed to be a cultural blind spot. The inhabitants of the Citadel ignored the savage on her way back to the Capitol. Calmly, rationally, infuriatingly, they went about their business while she moved past them. Bad temper did not register on the perceptions of those who had never stood in the shadow of a storm cloud.

“I only want to see him for a few minutes!” She didn’t have the gale force to blow down a locked door, but she was going to rain on all who came near until everyone was as miserable as she was. Tegan was tired of the words. She’d said them first to the guard outside the Doctor’s private office. Then she’d repeated them up the ranks until she was passed on to the Castellan himself. The man was new to his appointment, and puffed up with promotion.

“The Lord President is meeting with the High Council. You will have to wait until the meeting is over. There is no time limit.”

“But they must have breaks, to eat, or… or just because they’re sick of each other’s voices.” A meeting that went on without limit sounded like the Doctor’s idea of hell.

“Why should they finish if they rest? They will end the meeting when they have settled the matter at hand, or when they agree to postpone it pending further study.” The Castellan frowned at her.

“Couldn’t you even pass him a message?”

“I may only interrupt them under circumstances of disaster. Do you have news of an alien invasion?” The Castellan looked at her in a significant way.

Tegan glared at him. She was in the wrong and they both knew it, which fed her anger. “Fine. I’ll wait.”

“If you must,” he said quellingly. “It is not forbidden, if you cause no disturbance.”

“If I do you’ll be the first to know about it, believe me!” Tegan said, wishing she could give him a fat lip to go with his smug face.

 

Tegan refused to wait in her room. She sat down on a bench. She waited. She fumed. Then she lay down, dangling her feet off the edge. It wasn’t comfortable, but not as comfortless as jabs of frustrated impotence. She waited; she fumed; she fell asleep.

When she woke up, nothing had changed except the guard. It was a new one, so Tegan tried again. “I’d like to see the President now, please.” She smiled, all honey and no vinegar.

“The President is not to be disturbed.”

“Is he still meeting with the High Council?” Tegan rubbed her eyes.

“No, they left.”

“What? Didn’t anyone tell him I was waiting for him? Why won’t you let me in?”

“He sent out a message that he is not to be disturbed.”

Tegan made her feelings known in a few well-chosen phrases of Australian argot that apparently had no Gallifreyan equivalent. The guard only looked confused and the paint did not blister from the walls, which was typical of this day.

There was only one word left to convey her feelings. “Gallifreyans!” Tegan said with deepest loathing, and went to her room.

She tried Turlough’s contact code. Still out. The Doctor’s. No response.

Tegan ran her hands through her hair until it stood on end, and went out to the garden hoping to calm down. It was night. Lights came on at ground level. She sighed and her hot breath boiled out onto the air. “’I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your door in… oh! Which door is the Doctor’s?”

Fairy lights led her to a door. “Let me in,” Tegan said without huffery. The door swung open to the touch of her hand, and she passed through.

 

She had never been in his rooms any farther than the private office. Come to think of it, she’d never been in his room in the TARDIS. Now, that would be invading the Doctor’s privacy. He didn’t want the Presidency. This was an apartment of state, as impersonal as a hotel room. Why else have such an enormous bed when Time Lords hardly slept at all? Oh, yes, Morbius. Tegan dimly remembered that other things besides sleep happened in a bed.

“Doctor, are you here?” she called, and at that point realized she might be in trouble. The Lord President of Gallifrey ‘is not to be disturbed.’

She saw more light through a door that was partly opened. Coming closer, she could see that it led into the private office. If the Doctor was there, he should have heard her. Tegan went in. There were meeting materials on the desk. The long white sleeve of the Doctor’s Presidential robe draped over the armrest of the tall chair.

Tegan came around to the front of the desk. The Doctor was seated, his eyes open, his face calm. The Sash of Rassilon was draped around his shoulders; the Crown circled his brow. He had never looked so alien. The Crown was not merely a symbol. It provided a direct connection with the Matrix. He was in communion with the greatest storehouse of knowledge in existence. Certainly, he could answer her trivial questions—if he didn’t annihilate her like the insect she was.

She shouldn’t be here. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and started to tiptoe out the way she’d come.

“STAY.”

That one word stopped her motion like a wall of stone; her feet clung to the floor as if she was frozen to the spot. Tegan couldn’t even speak. The Doctor was looking at her. She was not consciously aware of the passage of time, but her knees gave out and she sank to the floor. She buried her face in her hands.

“Tegan? Oh, no.”

Arms came around her, lifted her; the Doctor carried her to the desk and sat her on the edge of it. He sat down next to her, with one arm still around her shoulders to support her. She leaned against him.

“I’m so sorry. I only meant for you to wait, but the Matrix… I did not mean to constrain you in any way. Wearing the Sash and the Crown, my will is reality inside the Matrix. I unknowingly exerted that power through my voice. Borusa did the same thing to you; you may be susceptible due to prior mental interference.”

“Stop babbling!” Tegan slapped out at him, not even trying to aim. Her fingertips brushed his chest.

He rumbled a sheepish, “Sorry,” and squeezed her shoulders.

Tegan sighed. “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have come in. It’s been a bad day. I think I have culture lag.”

“Did your trip not go well?”

“Oh, no! I enjoyed it, and yet I was glad to come back.”

“I’m glad to have you back. Perhaps we can make an exchange: if you will forgive me for accidentally trespassing on your liberty, I will gladly forgive your trespass of my apartment.” The Doctor tipped her chin up to make her look at him. “It might have been bad timing, but you are welcome.”

“Thanks, Doc. It’s a deal.” She managed a smile for him, since that was clearly what he wanted.

“So what was so important that you… wait, how the devil did you break in here?” The Doctor looked at her speculatively.

“The garden let me in.” Tegan felt a little glow at that accomplishment.

“Ah, yes, no guard out there. Well, that was easy. So why did you want to see me so urgently?”

Tegan felt herself blushing, and hedged, “I did lose my temper, but since we’re past that bit, have you ever heard of Professor Omicron?”

He stared at her. “How did you hear that name? He’s long dead.”

“Let’s not go into that just yet—he exists, right?”

“It’s sort of a pen name, really. Whoever he was, he wrote my favorite book on mythic galactigraphy.” The Doctor smiled ruefully, “I almost failed my exam by quoting from it.”

“ _Mythic_ galactigraphy?” Tegan felt a little woozy.

“It was a book on where imaginary places would be if they were real places, a compilation from ancient Gallifreyan legend. After I acquired the TARDIS, I went looking for them. Some are real places that were forgotten or deliberately kept secret. I always wondered if the author snuck them in there for subversive reasons.”

“I can see why you liked it. Anyway, I’ve met him.”

“But he’s dead. That book was millennia old when I read it.”

“Well, I met him in the library and he called himself Professor Omicron and said he was a retired teacher of galactigraphy. Keludar knew him. I promised I’d tell him about my trip Outside, but when I went looking for him, the librarian said he didn’t exist and accused me of pulling a student prank.”

The Doctor cleared his throat. “Students have been using that name for nefarious purposes for a while now. It’s sort of a senior class in-joke. But—“

Tegan put her hand over his mouth. “Don’t say he doesn’t exist! I’ve met him, I tell you.” The Doctor stared at her. His breath puffed over her fingers and she snatched her hand back quickly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—oh, rabbits.” Her hand flopped about in her lap, helpless with embarrassment.

“You seem keen to defend his motives in giving you a false name,” the Doctor said slowly.

“He was kind to me. I thought he was a sweet old man. He said he didn’t mind everyone thinking he was dead because he liked to surprise them.”

“Did you see him and Keludar together?”

“Yes. They spoke… “ Tegan realized she might be getting Keludar into trouble. Even if she was mad at him, she didn’t want that. Not with the President. “The Professor was worried about me being treated properly.”

“Because Keludar was there?” The Doctor asked the question casually, but his face had the keen look he got when he was pursuing a mystery.

“No! The Professor was confused about who was President. He mentioned someone named Morbius.”

The Doctor actually flinched, shifting far enough to the side so that he was hardly touching her at all.

“I told him I was being treated well, and that pleased him,” Tegan said, feeling contrite. The name of Morbius had upset the Doctor far more than she had anticipated.

“Next time I enter the Matrix, Tegan, I will ask after Professor Omicron.” The Doctor’s face set in stubborn lines.

Tegan touched his arm lightly. “Doctor, I think he’s all right. He was kind to me. I hated thinking he was neglected and alone, and him on his last regeneration.”

His expression softened. “I will remember you spoke up for him, Tegan.” The Doctor slid off the desk. “Feeling better? I believe it’s time for supper. Dine with me; I’ll see if Turlough’s about and we can all have a pleasant evening together.”

“All right. Say, Doctor?”

“Yes, Tegan?”

“Don’t tell Turlough I can get into his apartment.” Tegan smiled impishly at him.

“Your secret is safe with me, word of a Time Lord.” The Doctor smiled, and the last of Tegan's unease evaporated.


	8. Chapter 8

“They could reproduce sexually,” Tegan said. She was instantly the center of attention. Tegan was sitting with Ambirren, Keludar, Turlough, and a few others in an Academy courtyard. It was a student party. Keludar hadn’t called it a party, but to Tegan’s eyes they all looked like university students she’d seen hanging out. True, she didn’t expect kegs of beer and togas, but she and Turlough were the only ones not wearing robes. It had been Keludar’s idea, to make up for the quarrel. He’d invited Tegan to come tell a group of students about her trip Outside. She’d dragged Turlough along to squash her in case she started quarreling with Keludar again. “They don’t because they believe that their lifestyle should only be chosen by those who know what they’re giving up here.”

“The problem with the Shobogans,” Ambirren said in his unhurried tones, “is that they exist in a closed system. Their numbers are determined by how many people choose to live Outside and how fast they die. No viable population can be sustained without breeding new members. They’re a parasite culture.”

“I think they’re crazy to give all this up to live out there,” Turlough said forcefully. “They couldn’t be what they are if they hadn’t first had all that basic education. They’re performing a social experiment on themselves. How can they be objective?”

“I don’t know if they’re right, all I know is that they’re happy. They want to be left in peace to live as they like.” Tegan leveled a frown on them all.

“Happy?” Keludar lounged in his seat, a smile playing about his lips. “How quaint. They’re happy in living in their huts, chasing inoffensive animals, killing them, eating them, and wearing their skins, while their planet’s civilization continues elsewhere. It sounds like massive self-indulgence to me.”

“And you’re contributing something to civilization, Keludar, when you’re not combing your hair?” It was one of the students new to Tegan who spoke, and he enlarged on his query. “Certainly you’re ornamental. You’re looking especially Patrexean today.”

This probably referred to the brilliant heliotrope of the robe Keludar was wearing. It had a yoke and cuffs of light grey piped with black, accentuating the basic color. Keludar arched a sardonic eyebrow. “At least I am ornamental, Delan, and add something to my surroundings. Not all of us make the effort to be ornamental, or even to amuse others with their wit. As for significant contributions, what are you doing at the Academy if you are not dedicating your existence to your world?”

Delan looked miffed. “You make it sound self-sacrificing. You’re receiving a larger benefit than Gallifrey by your education.”

“Works in progress, Delan. Think of all the work that Gallifrey put into breeding the Shobogans, and they throw it away to live in the wilderness.”

Ambirren asked Tegan, “So how would you describe true primitives? Do you consider yourself primitive?”

Tegan looked back at him, and tried not to scowl. She’d never really warmed to Ambirren, though Turlough seemed to like him.

“Is it a relative term, or not? I know my planet is way behind Gallifrey. I’ve only seen a little of your world, so I don’t know all the ways people live here, but on Earth, there are people who live off the land the way their ancestors have for thousands of years. They didn’t choose that life, they were born into it.” Tegan bit her lip, trying to think out what she wanted to tell them. Pigs were barn-storming the Citadel, devils were figure skating in Hell, and the students of the Time Lord Academy were listening to an ex-air hostess.

“At the same time, in the human culture I came from, we have people who are always trying to increase the sum of human knowledge. They may know very little compared to any of you, but aren’t they on the same path?”

Turlough grinned at her. “I suppose there has to be some reason that Earth is the Doctor’s favorite planet to visit.”

“I never doubted it,” Keludar claimed, mirroring Turlough’s grin.

 

Ambirren started a discussion on the relative or absolute use of the term ‘primitive’. Delving into Gallifreyan semantics, it soon became too abstract for Tegan to follow. She slipped out. The bridge that led from the semi-private courtyard to the main plaza was a good spot to linger and watch the life of the Academy go on about and without her.

She wasn’t really surprised that Keludar followed her. Why else linger on the bridge? 

“You talked about the Shobogans for two hours and never answered my question.”

“That being?”

“Do you prefer life Outside or in the Citadel?”

“It’s not a question of places, but of people.” Tegan leaned against the rail, not looking at him.

“And the people? Did you prefer any of the Shobogans?”

Tegan looked at him. She never knew how to take questions like that from Keludar. She liked him, and she didn’t. She was attracted to him, and she wasn’t. The very dichotomy of her feelings disturbed her.

“I liked some of them.”

“I’m afraid your talk was a disappointment to some of our number. I think they were expecting to hear of more radical deeds than community sing-a-longs.”

“You mean orgies? Sorry, if they had them, I was not invited.”

“And if you had been?”

“That was a joke, Kel. Sex isn’t as easy as you might think. You can get into a lot of trouble, following animal instincts.” The moment the words popped out of her mouth, Tegan thought she understood a lot more about Keludar. “Intelligence and education make it possible to… to manage the whole messy business. Sex has consequences.” 

Keludar looked like he was carefully considering every word that came out of her mouth.

Tegan ran her fingers through her hair, standing it on end. She didn’t want to explain to him how ugly things could get in the course of swapping body fluids. She wanted to scream, but he truly didn’t understand. “Kel, you are very handsome. You know that, don’t you?”

Keludar raised an eyebrow. “Yes, so? My features are a byproduct of genetic selection.”

“But not all Gallifreyans look like you. Haven’t you noticed the advantage it gives you? You’re known for being witty, and you certainly have the gift of gab, but you get away with more because you’re handsome.”

“So I am the beneficiary of an atavistic reflex to favor certain facial characteristics?”

“If you have to put it in big words, yeah.”

Keludar’s lips quirked in a faint smile. “It doesn’t seem to work on you.”

“I haven’t slapped you yet,” Tegan pointed out. “And don’t think I haven’t been tempted.” She was tired of all this analysis. After a while, talk stopped meaning anything.

“You’re attractive. As the expert in primitive social interactions, I am sure you notice how Gallifreyan males, even Time Lords, experience an atavistic reflex to favor you.” He reached out, tracing the line of her jaw before she stepped back.

“Not really. It’s a far cry from being thought… ornamental, to getting respect.” Tegan tried to shrug off his words.

“‘Ornamental’ is an ill-chosen word to describe you. Your outward appearance is comely, but you are loud, stubborn, and hot-tempered. Gallifreyan women are ornamental: lovely statues, still life paintings in pastel colors. I don’t even have a word for what you are. It’s maddening.” Keludar considered her carefully, his blue eyes intent in a baffled face.

Tegan didn’t like it. She felt like he was trying to pin her down, a butterfly to be catalogued and collected. “Whatever I am, I don’t do it for your benefit, or your… “ Her splendid retort was ruined by the lack of a word.

“Detriment?” Keludar suggested with a grin.

“Whatever. It has nothing to do with you. I’m being me, that’s all. Take it or leave it.” Tegan put her hands on her hips and tried to stare him down.

It was a spectacular failure. Keludar closed on her and reached out to cup her shoulder. “I’ll take it, then.”

His touch, light as it was, and the look in his eyes sent Tegan ducking away. She hadn’t entertained sexual response for a long time, and it was an unwelcome guest now. “That was an expression, not an invitation. Learn the difference,” she growled.

Keludar didn’t try to hold her or follow her, but his gaze never left her; he hardly blinked. “Our acquaintance has been highly educational so far.”

“Maybe the Academy will make me a professor,” Tegan said, eying him warily.

“Speaking of professors, someone is trying to get your attention.” Keludar pointed to the next bridge. Professor Omicron stood there, beckoning. Then he walked off the bridge into the shadowy area beyond.

“Tell Turlough not to wait. Thanks for the invitation, I owe you one!” Tegan hurried to catch up with the Professor.

“That’s two,” Keludar said as she sped away. 

 

Tegan tracked the Professor by the golden sheen of his cowl, the only thing she could spot as he moved through dimly lit areas. The tap of her high heels gave away her location. He paused by an open door and held it for her. “It may be a bit of a walk,” he said apologetically. “If you take the end of my stole, I’ll lead you. The floors are quite even, and there is some light.”

She took hold of the golden fabric and gazed past him into the dark passage. “The Doctor thought you were dead. He seemed a little upset. I’m sorry if it makes trouble for you.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ve seen Presidents come and go. They’ve too much to deal with to bother with an old Time Lord who does no harm. Besides, I’m a very clever fellow if I say so myself. Up for a little adventure, Lady Tegan?” He smiled at her hopefully.

“I’ve got used to doing crazy things on the spur of the moment. It’s the Doctor’s preferred way of life.”

“You make him sound a very interesting fellow. I can see we’ve much to chat about. Now, then.” He moved into the passage with a whisper of robes. Tegan guessed it must be some sort of maintenance access. They walked for at least a half hour, though Tegan’s sense of time was scrambled by near constant darkness. She didn’t know why she trusted the old man, but she did.

He led her into a room lined by views screens that, dimmed at first, began to light up with images as he entered. The main furnishing of the room was a big armchair, upholstered in deep green with golden tassels. Set next to it was a table of the kind Tegan was used to in the public areas, complete with the usual sort of chair.

“Welcome to my little den. Please have a seat. I brought in the chair especially for you. I’ve never had a guest before.”

At first the displays were static. There was a view of Gallifrey from space, and of closer landscapes she didn’t recognize except for one view of the mountains that looked like the one she could see from the Presidential garden. Other displays constantly shifted, showing views of the interior of the Citadel. Tegan thought they were all public spaces. The occasional person moved through them. “Butterfly collection,” she murmured, settling into the other seat while the Professor lowered himself into his armchair. “So you are watching people?”

“I am watching the world.” She blinked at him and he explained, “I’ve tapped into the feeds from the Panopticon.”

“I thought that was the hall where they hold all the big events.”

“The Panopticon can also generate all these views on its walls. They seldom use it for that function these days, but the streams of data still exist. I see more of the Citadel than most, living in its walls. You might call me the ‘Insider.’ He laughed at his play on words.

“That’s a good joke, all right, but it can’t be healthy to live alone like this. You let some of the students know you. Why be so secretive? What are you watching out for?”

The Professor ordered the table to serve them refreshments, and the usual array of drinks and food pills appeared. “I listened to your account of your visit to the Shobogans. It was quite enlightening to see them through your eyes. How old are you, my dear?”

Tegan would have given Keludar, Turlough, or the Doctor a piece of her mind, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to pry at the elderly Time Lord. “I’m twenty-four, I think. It’s hard to keep track of birthdays when you go time traveling.”

“Twenty-four,” the Professor murmured. “Amazing.” He gently took her hand. “I could figure out exactly how old I am, but after ten thousand years the exact count does not seem important.” He looked at their joined hands. “Everything must be new to such youth. You are counted an adult on your world, are you not?”

“There’s no one to make my decisions but me. I’ve counted that true since I was eighteen.” Tegan tried to sound brash. She couldn’t stop staring at his hand. What was ten thousand years old on Earth that was even human-built? The Pyramids, maybe?

 

Professor Omicron considered Tegan with those ancient yet keen eyes. “Here you are, a young woman from a race that has not yet begun to travel in space. You’ve seen alien worlds of all sorts, and now you are living as a guest of the leader of one of the most powerful worlds in the cosmos. Why are you here, Lady Tegan? Why did you agree to come?” He squeezed her hand gently then released it. “For my part, you are most welcome here.”

“I left my world to travel with the Doctor. I didn’t want to go home yet.” Tegan picked up a food pill and rolled it between her fingers. “There was nothing I wanted to do that matched traveling with him. I’m an ordinary person. Getting picked up the first time was an accident. For him to turn up again in my life… I couldn’t pass up a chance like that. It wasn’t like I was leaving anything behind except family. I guess you could say I wanted to live as big a life as I could.”

“That was a very brave thing to do. However, I must confess I do not understand why the Doctor would allow you and other young people to travel with him. You are an adult, and a brave woman, but how can he think it good to take you away from your own life? Are you not in your primary childbearing years? Does your world have artificial wombs yet? I understand it is a dangerous business to carry a fetus to term and that many humanoid females die of this even in the best circumstances. What will you do when you go home, wiser but older?”

He sound close to tears, and Tegan, who would have ordinarily responded like the ardent feminist she was, tried to keep her cool. “Having children is not the be-all and end-all of every woman’s life. Not on Gallifrey, not on Earth, and if my opinion counts, not anywhere.”

Professor Omicron sighed and sank deep into his chair. “We are much alike.”

“Huh?” said Tegan.

“I walked out of my life, but at the end of it, not the beginning. The idea is that after your final regeneration, you are supposed to be entirely free to live your own life. Therefore, they forced me to retire from teaching. The Academy is particularly strict about the retirement regeneration. With so many teachers living for thousands of years, advancement comes slowly to junior staff. The petty intrigues of the Academy faculty could fill many books, many boring books.” He sipped from his cup. “I realized that I was in a rut several thousand years deep. Retirees are expected to live out their lives in pampered luxury, and be about as useful as timepieces for Eternals. I had to do something different.”

Tegan munched on food pills while she listened.

The Professor leaned over the table, grinning conspiratorially. “Under my real name, I have a little apartment that’s quite empty but consumes enough resources for a doddering old Time Lord. It leaves me free to live this second, independent life. I am accountable to no one except my own conscience. Being nonexistent is quite convenient.”

“What do you do with all this freedom? What’s the difference between that apartment and this… secret lair?” Tegan also couldn’t see how they were all that alike.

“I observe; I pay attention; I learn. Once I realized that I’d been in a rut, it became plain to me that Gallifrey was in a rut. This is a stagnant culture. If I were living as part of it, I would have no chance of making objective measurements. Now you come along, with your young eyes that see my world in a fresh light. It’s most invigorating. Secret lair! Hee. HeeHEE!”

Tegan was relieved when he subsided. “You ought to talk to the Doctor. He’s worried about Gallifrey, too.”

“No, no. He’s the President. I must keep my distance in order to maintain independence.”

“What’s the good of observing if you’re not going to do anything?”

“Who said I was doing nothing?’ His eyes twinkled. “But go to the President? Your Doctor seems a clever young fellow. What good would I be to him? He’s already got enough bottoms to warm the seats of the High Council. Those who see what should be done should do it. Thus this work falls to me.”

“The Insider’s work, right?”

“Exactly. I may doubt the Doctor’s sense of ethics in carrying a lot of young people about the cosmos, but I can see why he picked you. You’re such charming company, my dear. Too charming to spend much time cooped up here with an old relic like me. I wish you would consider reproduction. I think it’s an awful shame that there will be so little of you in history. A few short decades, like a flower that blooms too close to winter’s first frost.”

Tegan’s eyes stung. “I probably can’t have children. A few years ago, I got pregnant. I was very young and scared and angry and I didn’t want a child, and not with… that’s not important. The operation didn’t turn out well and I was sick for a long time. There’s scarring, and… anyway, that’s how it is.”

“So your traditional options being lost, you wanted to live a life of as much significance you could any way you found?”

“Exactly. I guess you were right about you and me, Professor.” Tegan summoned up a watery smile. “Besides, I liked the idea of going out among aliens. I wanted to go places where I’d be judged for who I am, not for being pretty.”

The Professor chuckled. “How has that turned out?”

“Most of the time, people are too busy trying to kill us to care what I wear, or what I don’t wear, for that matter. I always liked the Doctor because he expects me to use my brain and he judges me by what I do, not what I look like. Not that he’s been too pleased. My bad temper’s always getting me in a scrape. I didn’t dare ask him to take me the second time. I charged in like there was no question. I didn’t want to be left behind again.”

“I’m certain that if the Doctor did not want you on board his capsule, he would have removed you. Assure yourself of his willingness, my dear Lady Tegan.” The Professor patted her arm.

“We’re good friends now. I only wish I saw more of him. He works so hard. He never wanted to be President, but he couldn’t turn aside if there was the chance he could make things better. Borusa’s going to the bad hit the Doctor hard.”

“I dare say.” Professor Omicron regarded one of his viewscreens. “I think this would be a good time for me to escort you back. Would you like to visit me again?”

“If only to make you laugh,” Tegan smiled at him. He didn’t admit it any more than the Doctor did, but she thought the Professor was lonely.

“Then take this data solid. It will allow you to send messages to me. I’ll contact you in my own unique way,” he said gleefully. “Now, back to your President you go, and tell him that I am quite harmless.”

Tegan took the crystal. “And all this should be our secret?”

“I shan’t ask you to make promises, my dear. You must use your best judgment. But remember—quite, quite harmless!”


	9. Chapter 9

Turlough was the evil genius behind this lunch. It was his fault Tegan found herself sitting with the Doctor, Turlough, and Lady Flavia. Tegan found Lady Flavia extremely intimidating. She respected the Chancellor, but Flavia was the concentrated essence of every terrifying headmistress Tegan had ever known.

According to Turlough, that bastard, Lady Flavia had asked for Tegan specifically, “Because she wants to get to know you better.” All right, maybe it wasn’t Turlough’s fault, but he was sitting opposite her and it was convenient to blame him.

At this moment, wishing she had a clean handkerchief and sure that her make-up was smudged, Tegan found those words the most terrifying in the universe. “I was never very good in school,” Tegan had to admit under that serenely inexorable gaze. “I kept losing my temper.” She felt like her temper was actually a yapping terrier that had just piddled on Flavia’s floor.

“Not everyone has a scholarly turn of mind. Indeed, many Gallifreyans turn to practical skill sets, and Gallifrey would be lost without them,” Lady Flavia said kindly.

“Tegan’s quite a good artist,” the Doctor ventured. Somehow, during the course of the meal, his end of the table had become distant as if he could affect space itself with his longing to escape. Of course, Tegan could simply be projecting her own desire.

Tegan attempted to wear a modest expression on the Flavia side of her body, and mount a death stare assault on the Doctor’s side. Turlough, sitting opposite, looked alarmed at this incipient psychotic break and smiled weakly. “Yes, she is,” he said.

“Turlough does wonderful sketches,” Tegan said, sprinkling her words with powdered sugar and a hint of arsenic. “I hope you didn’t leave that sketchpad on the Eye of Orion, Turlough.”

“Er, I’m not sure,” Turlough said, and she could see him frantically wondering which outcome would be better for him.

“The art of music has long been favored on Gallifrey. The mathematical properties of music have been celebrated since the time of Rassilon,” Lady Flavia informed her.

Rassilon was as good a conversation ender as Hitler. Tegan’s mind was blank. She looked to the Doctor, imploring him to break the silence.

He smiled at her and attempted a rescue. “Lady Flavia is right, but don’t be alarmed. While there are a few minor works along the line of ‘Ode to the Hypotenuse,’ our finest composers have found inspiration in the mathematics of nature. I must find a recording of Tersuborin’s Spiral Symphony for you. It’s based on the Fibonacci sequence, Tegan, which is often found in natural symmetries such as the spiral of a shell, or the seed head of a sunflower. To enjoy the Spiral Symphony requires no knowledge of math at all, only of beauty.”

Tegan loved that the Doctor always assumed that she was capable of appreciating the wonders of the universe. Sometimes she had pretended not to care simply to make him try harder to impress her. Looking back, she wondered if that perverse pleasure was born from the Mara’s influence. Even if that was the case, she was stuck with the memories. “I’ll have a listen,” she said, trying to keep it light. It sounded flippant instead, and she tried to convey with her eyes that she wasn’t merely humoring his suggestion.

Turlough said something to the Doctor about Trion music. Tegan didn’t catch it because Lady Flavia was asking what an air hostess did. The Doctor would probably object if Tegan stabbed Flavia through the hearts with a table knife. Of course, as lunch consisted solely of food pills and fruit drinks, there were no knives available. Lady Flavia would never know how narrow an escape she had. It was just as well. She wasn’t sure the woman had meant her questions in any mean spirit.

 

The Chancellor had detained her at the end of lunch. “May I have a private word?”

“Certainly, Lady Flavia,” Tegan said, as civilly as possible. She did not want to get on the wrong side of this woman if she could help it.

“I understand you had a disagreement with the Castellan. I wished to know if you desired to lodge some complaint.”

Tegan’s eyes narrowed. “No. I’ve no complaint. He was doing his job.”

Flavia raised an eyebrow. “I’m relieved to hear it. I thought there might be some issue of privilege that I could clarify. You could apply to the Lord President, of course, but he has never had much care for regulations. Others are less successful than he in evading the consequences.”

Tegan bristled. “Is that a threat?” she demanded.

“No, my dear, a warning, and one intended for your own good. The Doctor acted outside the law in bringing you and Turlough with him. It was a calculated political act. In my short acquaintance with the two of you, I have learned Turlough has political acumen that you lack.”

“That’s true enough,” Tegan admitted. “You’re worried I’ll embarrass the Doctor and damage him politically, aren’t you?”

“In truth, you’ve stayed out of politics in so far as that is possible for one in your position. I think you have done well. I can only advise you to choose carefully which battles to fight.”

“Thanks, I think.”

 

When Tegan returned from lunch, she had a message from Keludar.

‘If you will favor me with your company, meet me in the Panopticon in the mid-afternoon. Your tour of Gallifrey cannot be complete without a trip up the Spire.’

_Favor_. There was that word again. Keludar liked having her in his debt a little too much for her liking. Tegan remembered Flavia’s advice and got a firm grip on her tolerance. Maybe it was more serious an obligation here than it was in her culture. For instance, mid-afternoon referred to a specific hour here. Gallifrey was a punctual planet, so mid-afternoon meant he’d be there waiting for her at the local equivalent of 2:45 and she had until 3 to meet him, but the polite thing to do would be to meet him at 2:45 exactly.

“Gallifreyans,” Tegan muttered. She decided to change clothes. Gallifreyans had little variety in their dress. She hoped that her wearing different outfits gave them a tiny feeling of uncertainty. That wasn’t picking a fight; it was returning the favor.

 

Tegan looked up. She couldn’t see the top of the shaft. It was so high it narrowed into indefinite shadow. “So you want us to attach ourselves to this cable by these lift belts and ride all the way up there?”

“That’s the idea.” Keludar waved the lift belt in her direction.

She wasn’t taking it yet. “And what’s up there?”

“The top of the Citadel. The height of Gallifrey’s power and the best view of the Capitol, the Citadel, and this continent. There are taller mountains, but if you go to the top, what will you see? A lot more mountain and some horizon. And of course, the Spire is out of bounds.”

“Why is that?”

“There’s no oversight. It’s one of the few places you can go where you can’t be seen or monitored in any way. Short of going Outside, that is. Even there, you could be seen by orbital surveillance systems. Going up the Spire is an Academy tradition.”

Tegan took the lift belt. She wondered if Professor Omicron knew about this custom. He might like to fly beneath security ‘radar’, but she couldn’t imagine him hooked to a lift belt and floating up a cable in his robe and cowl and stole, looking like a parade balloon. “How does this work?”

“The lift belt is a personal antigravity device, but it doesn’t provide propulsion. The cable allows us to control our ascent and descent. Even if somehow you became detached from the cable, the lift belt would see that you float slowly back down.” Keludar strapped the belt around his waist. Then he jumped up into the air, easily three times Tegan’s height, and floated back down. His robe billowed up around his knees revealing the narrow cut trousers that were customarily worn under the robes. His feet touched the floor soundlessly. Indeed, he didn’t quite seem to touch the ground. “The belt projects an energy field three meters high that provides a personal microgravity environment. They’re used for training people to work in space.” He tilted his head and regarded her with one of his mocking smiles. “Shall we?”

“All right, then. If it’s so safe, why not?” Tegan strapped on her belt. The arrangement of locking carabineers Keludar used to attach them to the cable reminded her of mountain climbing equipment. Lift belts would make climbing Everest a snap.

Keludar activated the cable lift device. Tegan felt a slight tug at the belt just before her feet left the ground. She clutched reflexively at his arm and he gripped her arm in turn. “It’s easier if we steady each other. Do heights bother you?”

“Not if I feel in control. I don’t feel like I’m rising. The last time I felt anything like this, I was piloting a glider making a descent.”

“Maintain a local vertical. If you can define where ‘down’ is, you’ll feel more comfortable. We’re not doing microgravity maneuvering, but simply going up.”

“What’s the point of all this empty space, anyway?”

“This is the center spire. It’s an architectural element that provides stability to upper parts of the Citadel.”

Tegan remembered the mountain that had once been here. She wasn’t a geologist or architect, but the idea of stability made a kind of sense to her. It gave her the feeling of standing with up stretched arms, so that she would have to balance herself with her feet set apart. “It makes me think of the Eiffel Tower. I always wanted to go to the top.”

“Tell me of the Eiffel Tower.”

“It’s in a city called Paris, one of Earth’s most beautiful cities. It’s a freestanding tower of metal beams, all open work with only two platforms. It’s more of an art object than a building.”

The trip up took longer than Tegan could guess. They moved slowly, and their surroundings were monotonous. Though the space was getting narrower, when she looked down it seemed to narrow below as well as above her as the lines of perspective fooled her eyes.

Keludar was less talkative than usual. He responded to her readily, but seemed disinclined to start topics of conversation himself.

Tegan realized that the space around her was growing brighter. When she looked up, she was dazzled by sunlight. They rose into a space where great transparent panels let in the light. She felt like she was suspended in the open air, and all around below her were the spires of the Citadel. The lower peaks were beneath them, and as they rose higher, the other spires attenuated and dropped away. They were traveling to the highest point.

Not quite at the very top of the inside of the spire was a platform. Keludar swung them over so that they were standing on it, and detached their belts from the lift. It was a small space, but big enough for Tegan to feel there was something between her and the drop over the edge. The view was everything Keludar had promised. Here she stood above the Citadel, even higher than the garden, and looked down on the center of Gallifreyan life.

A low bulkhead provided a convenient spot to sit. Tegan put her nose nearly to the transparent wall so she could look down. She whistled. Seated next to her, Keludar was taken aback.

“Are you all right? What was that noise?”

“A whistle. It means I’m impressed.” Tegan grinned at him.

“Do it again, please?” He watched her mouth as she whistled. When he imitated her, he only produced a puff of air, and Tegan couldn’t help laughing at him.

“You have to purse your lips tightly and produce a strong stream of air. You ought to manage it with a little practice, if you don’t mind looking like a fish.” Tegan put her hands to her head for fins and puffed her cheeks out to perform the classic fish imitation.

“You don’t look like a fish,” Keludar assured her straight-faced. “Perhaps as a favor to me you might instruct—“

“Look, is this a Gallifreyan custom I don’t know?” Tegan decided to drag it out into the open. “You seized on the idea of me owing you a favor; you even kept count. On Earth that’s not considered very friendly.”

“As the idea of owing me a favor so oppresses you, I shall call it in right now and we’ll be done with it.” Keludar’s eyes sparkled. “I trust it will be no great effort on your part. I claim a kiss.”

At first Tegan thought it was another of his jokes. Then she saw the eager light in his eyes and was instantly suspicious. “You had this in mind right from the beginning, didn’t you? You saw Andred was happy and you wanted to know why. So I come along and you think this is your chance. If you hang around the savage female long enough, she’ll go in to heat.” Tegan fought to keep her voice under control. If she lost her temper, he wouldn’t listen to her at all.

Keludar kept his face calm, but layered his words with more condescension than usual. “According to the available data on Earth, healthy adult human females are more or less constantly in heat. Of course, individual specimens may have low reproductive drives.”

“I do not have a low sex drive, you nasty-minded git.” Tegan clenched her fists. It was so tempting to storm away. Only, she’d done that far too often lately. She was tired of retreating, and up here, retreating meant a long drop into darkness.

Keludar smiled, that attractive expression of his that looked so genuine yet she could not bring herself to believe in it. “I could never think that of you like that. There’s nothing cold about you, Tegan. Or should that be ‘frigid’? No? Of course you are not. Obviously, your energies, your passions, are elsewhere directed.”

“What? There isn’t anyone. Not you, not Turlough, not Andred, Leela, a Shobogan, Professor Omicron, or the High Council.”

“What about the Doctor?”

“He’s part of the High Council, isn’t he? And just in case that’s not enough, not the Master or Omega or Rassilon. No. One.”

“No Other?” His blue eyes laughed at a joke that went over her head. “You’re not going to do much kissing if that’s your attitude,” Keludar pointed out, quieting his laughter to a smile.

Tegan stared at him. The warm gush of anger drained away. “I’ll live.”

“For not nearly long enough. You’re lying about that list, anyway. Why else should you look so sad? That’s not indifference I see on your face.”

She’d never heard Keludar speak so directly before, or be so open with her before. So what if he had this in mind all along? A handsome man wanted to kiss her. When had she become such a prude? The highly evolved Gallifreyan wanted to kiss the ape-girl. He cared about her answer.

“All right. Stay there.” She stood up. He raised an eyebrow at her, and she explained, “You’re too tall. You’ve never done this before, have you?”

“…“ He opened his mouth as if to make one of his usual quips, but nothing emerged. Finally, something that could shut up gadfly Kel.

Tegan had to admit to a thrill of power. She felt like she had the upper hand, at least for the moment. She came closer and looked down into his face. Keludar was very handsome: male model, movie star handsome. It was like meeting Robert Redford and finding out he’d never been kissed.

Keludar stirred impatiently, his brows drawing together in a slight frown.

“What did you think was going to happen? That I was going to mash my mouth against yours? I’m not so sure you want to do this. It’s very primitive,” she taunted.

“I’m well aware of the physical aspects. You seem to be the more fastidious about it of the two of us.”

“Shut it,” Tegan said, and took her face between his hands. He froze in place. Had anyone ever touched him except perhaps a physician? She remembered the creche of the Looms. Here he was, older than her grandfather, and no one had ever patted him or hugged him. It was sad and horrible, and not conducive to kissing. Tegan was sure Keludar didn’t want her to weep all over him. He had agreed to share spit, not snot. She had to smile. A human would have almost certainly smiled back. Keludar’s mouth quirked, but his sapphire blue eyes stayed watchfully on her face.

“You really are shockingly good-looking, Keludar.”

“I know,” he said, and nothing more as she leaned in and pressed her lips softly to his forehead, like the mother no Gallifreyan had had in centuries. She tried not to think, but to feel him as she might any man she was kissing for the first time. She rested her warm cheek against his cool one. His eye blinked and she noticed he had thick blond lashes. She thought she saw surprise, but perhaps it was the reflection of an uncertain Tegan. Her smile pivoted across his cheek before she kissed the corner of his mouth.

Keludar tried to turn his mouth to meet hers, but she anticipated the motion and stilled his head with her cupped hands. “No. We do this my way, or not at all.” Tegan leaned in closer and rubbed noses with him. She giggled at his startled expression, and then brushed his lips with hers. His breath was sweet and his pulse beat against her little finger resting on his neck. He took hold of her waist to steady her.

He wanted, she needed; so she kissed him full on. She fed his naive mouth with her frustration and her loneliness. With lips and tongue and breath, with no words at all, she told him what it was like to be human on this ancient world, beautiful but so cold.

When she drew back, she looked into his face. There she saw sensuality and many other shades of desire. Looking for something she could not name, she saw one thing she had no name for; known but unremembered, a shadow that chilled her blood. She stepped back from him, twisting away from the grip on her waist.

“Come back,” Keludar said.

“No. No,” Tegan said, and turned to the edge of the platform. She heard him stand up, and the need to be gone took over. She stepped off the platform. Like a mote of light, she floated down into the darkness of the shaft. Her hands covered her face, held her wet cheeks. She could not be afraid of falling when reaching the bottom was a longed for inevitability.


	10. Chapter 10

Unsettled did not cover how she felt; not this sensation as if every red blood cell had turned spiky. She headed away from the Spire with no destination in mind. An hour later, she was lost in some residential area. Gallifrey’s dust was of the mental kind. The environmental systems of the Citadel kept everything tidy. The doors could have concealed empty apartments or she could be in the midst of a populous neighborhood. Professor Omicron had rejected this warren life.

Her feet were tired long before she found her way back to her apartment. She hurt all over, with untraceable, phantom pain. It wasn’t her imagination. The stolid guard at the entrance to the Presidential Suite gave her a keen and searching look that wondered if she were an incident to report. She closed the door of her private apartment with a sense of relief. There were cures for this misery. The usual prescription was chocolate or a hot bath. Gallifrey was sadly deficient in chocolate. She should get the Doctor to introduce it. Didn’t chocolate ape the chemical rush of love? It had been a long time since she’d seen an issue of Cosmopolitan.

Chocolate would be perfect for Gallifrey. They could have their love substitute without ever having to touch another person. 

“It was just a kiss, woman!”

Why did she always have to make things more difficult? Tegan plopped down in the bath and felt the water swirl around her. It was soft, with something mixed into it that cleansed her without any effort. Today she noticed a new scent. It was pleasant, barely noticeable, and after a while she realized that the jangling of her nerves had ceased. It was some kind of aromatherapy. No wonder Gallifreyans thought they didn’t need other people when they had technology like this.

They were completely wrong, but she could understand where they’d got the idea. 

Poor Keludar, left there alone. She wondered if he had any idea how to handle sexual frustration. Would he have any idea what was going on with his body? Probably he had some technique for calming his hormones. The hot bath worked pretty well for her.

Tegan crawled out of the bath, submitted to the post-bath routine, and went straight to bed. It had been that kind of day.

 

_Hands touching her. A voice whispering things she couldn’t quite hear. The weight of a body, no, yes—she tried to hold on, but the contact was never quite enough. She slipped her fingers into Keludar’s blond hair, drew the Doctor down for a kiss. She tasted Kel’s mouth more vividly than anything else so far and her other senses began to wake up. There he was, a solid weight promising the kind of touch she craved. Dark-haired and blue-eyed, tilting his head, he smiled through bearded lips. The first sound she recognized was the Master’s velvety chuckle._

She screamed herself awake.

Tegan found herself sitting upright in bed, her heart hammering and her body fever hot. The cool air of the room felt like a splash of ice water on her sweat-glazed skin.

Someone was talking. Someone was there in the room.

“My lady? Are you unwell?”

Light came into the bedroom from the open door. Someone was standing there and a few blinks showed her the silhouette of one of the Guards. The white cloak was unmistakable.

“What? I’m not... I mean, I’m fine.”

It was just then that she realized she was sitting there naked, with the sheet around her hips. She gasped and snatched at the sheet, which tangled with her legs, turned slippery and evaded her sleep-clumsy fingers.

There was someone else at the door. “Get out. I’ll handle this,” said the Doctor’s voice. The guard murmured something inaudible and left. The Doctor closed the door. Tegan noticed, when she finally had the sheet wrapped around her torso, that he had his back to her. God forbid the Doctor should see something he’d rather not see.

She wanted him to go away, but he wouldn’t without an explanation of some kind. She knew him that well.

“You can turn around. It’s safe.” Tegan winced at the nasty tone of her voice.

The bed was huge. The Doctor came and sat on the end of it, well out of reach. “What happened?”

“It was only a nightmare. Sorry about the ruckus.” Tegan pulled her knees up and felt the remnants of arousal slick between her thighs.

“Do you want to talk about it?” There was barely enough light for her to make out where his face was. She couldn’t read his expression at all, but his voice was kind and patient.

His patience scraped Tegan’s nerves, but she was not crazy enough to yell at him for acting like a friend. “No,” she said, and cursed mentally. She should have told him she didn’t remember. That would have been safer.

“It was only a normal sort of nightmare? You’ve impetus enough for those, I’m sorry to say.”

He had that right. Tegan imagined saying, “I dreamt I was shagging you or Keludar, and then I realized it was the Master.” She’d rather die. “How did the guard hear me scream? I thought these apartments were soundproof.”

Even in the dark, she thought she could make out that pained look he got when she put him off instead of answering his questions. “The environmental systems noticed your distress and summoned assistance.”

“What, are nightmares illegal on Gallifrey?”

“The systems here are not used to dealing with anyone but a Time Lord. You know I rarely sleep.”

Tegan’s subconscious handed a note to her conscious which said, snidely, ‘he’s fully dressed in the middle of the night, you know.’ “Yes, I know,” she said to the Doctor. She knew she sounded like a grumpy, ungrateful bitch, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

“Has anything happened to upset you? I thought you enjoyed your visit with the Shobogans.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with that!” God, she sounded like a teenager. She was not going to talk to the Doctor like she was a sulky child and he the forebearing parent. “Sorry. I guess I’m still shaken up.”

“That’s quite all right. I know we’ve not had much time together. Perhaps you’d like to talk awhile, until you’re ready to go back to sleep?”

He was determined to look after her. She’d better submit with good grace. She was supposed to be an adult, after all; it was time she acted it.

“Yes, but I don’t want to talk in bed,” oh, no, why’d I put it that way? “And I’m, well…” A laugh turned up in her voice. “Doctor, please hand me my dressing gown and turn your back?”

The Doctor got off the bed in a hurry. He found the robe quickly, handed it to her, then retreated and turned away. His eyes obviously had enough light to see by. She could only see him because he was wearing white.

Tegan let the sheet drop. She knew the Doctor wouldn’t turn around, but she watched his back anyway. He’d never turn around. Even though Gallifreyan males could definitely be interested in sex and aroused by a woman’s touch, the Doctor had more control of himself than to peep at her like a teenaged boy. Her heart was still beating fast. The inside of her head was raveled with shredded dreams. Tegan stood up, unable to resist the impulse that moved her. Naked, she took a step forward and began leisurely pulling the dressing gown on over her arms. The Doctor’s shoulders twitched. Without closing her gown, Tegan put her hand on the Doctor’s back.

“Thanks for coming to my rescue, Doc. That poor guard had no idea.”

“It was nothing, Tegan. I’m glad you’re all right. You are, aren’t you?” Tegan enjoyed feeling the rumble of his voice through her hand. It took a moment for the dubious tone to register, and she snatched her hand back quickly and did up her garment. The movement of cloth on skin yielded a puff of her own body odor: human sweat, Gallifreyan bath scent, and a hint of female musk. Far too late, she remembered that the Doctor claimed to have a keen sense of smell.

Tegan circled around the Doctor. “Decent, now. God, I need a drink.”

“Er, yes, under these circumstances, I agree. Shall I?”

“Yes, please. I want a minute to splash my face.” Tegan took a couple of minutes, actually, quickly wiping down her body before returning to find that the Doctor had provided drinks. She took the offered cup. “Let’s go out.”

“Out?” The Doctor looked at her dressing gown and bare feet.

“Outside, out,” Tegan slipped past him and was out the door to the garden before prudence could stop her. The snow was thicker than ever, but a path had already been thawed and warmed for her. She guessed that it had been done starting from the moment she’d moved towards the door. Her breath hung in the frigid air like a magician’s string of silk handkerchiefs, yet her bare feet were toasty warm.

“It likes you,” the Doctor said over her shoulder.

“What likes me?” Tegan sipped experimentally at her drink. It was strong stuff. This must be what it took to get a Time Lord drunk.

“The environmental system. It’s not unlike the systems on the TARDIS. It has an element of awareness. It knows when it is used or unused; it knows that you appreciate it. It wants to be used. That is its fundamental purpose. So it responds to you promptly and tries to anticipate your needs, in the scope of its function.” The Doctor stepped up beside her.

“I love it out here. It’s so peaceful. I know there’s a force screen around it keeping out the worst of the weather, but someone realized that snow is worth having.” The burn of the drink made her feel light-headed in a pleasant way. It had been a kiss, no calamity; a nightmare, no violation. The sky was lit with false dawn. Sunrise would come early here, so high up.

The Doctor took her hand. Out here in the cold, his grip felt comparatively warm. “If you would like, Tegan, it shall be your private garden for the duration of your stay. I will tell the system that you have the authority to deny others entrance, save under emergency conditions.”

Her throat tightened, she had to choke out the words. “Thank you, Doctor. Yes, I would like that.”

“Consider it your Otherstide present.” She looked at him, he smiled, squeezed her hand, and released it. “It’s a Gallifreyan winter festival. It’s surprisingly analogous to Christmas. People sometimes give gifts, and attend family dinners.”

“Is there going to be a family dinner? You’ve never mentioned having family.” Tegan stared at him. She loved the idea of owning the garden, however temporary, but she was more interested in the Doctor’s past. For a man who spoke about himself as much as did the Doctor, he never actually said much.

“I have relatives. We do not get on. At any rate, as President of the High Council, I will have to host a function for the occasion. It’s a matter of tradition and expectation. It’s like an unofficial obligation.” The Doctor smiled wryly.

“Sounds like family to me. Could I help with your party? I may not be political, but I’m social.” Tegan put on her best company smile. Maybe an air hostess wasn’t a rocket scientist, but she’d been trained to meet and greet.

“If you would be my companion for the evening, I would appreciate it. For one thing, it would signal that I am refusing to do business.” The Doctor’s smile warmed, and Tegan tried to remember the last time she’d seen him look simply happy. “I think it would do them good to pass a night in frivolity.”

“The Shobogans know how to party. They have actual food and drink. They have music and dancing.” Tegan sighed. She bet the Shobogans would throw a great Otherstide party.

“You mean they have fun? Good thing they were outlawed, it might spread.” The Doctor might have meant it to be a joke, but there was unmistakable bitterness in his voice.

Tegan elbowed him. “When fun is outlawed, only outlaws have fun.”

He laughed out loud, loud enough to shake snow off a nearby tree branch. “I could make myself notorious. The Lord President, hosting a dance. Oh, the scandal.”

“Are you sure the shock wouldn’t kill some of the older ones?”

“Regenerate them, not kill. Some of the older-looking ones are still on their early regenerations. You’ve a point. I’ll have to invite some people under a century old, if only for the sake of you and Turlough. He spent a lot of time with the Academy students while you were gone. I’m sure he’ll have a few names,” the Doctor mused.

About to suggest Keludar, Tegan found herself hesitating to speak. Maybe she’d check with Turlough, later. She didn’t want to think about Keludar right now. She suddenly noticed the Doctor watching her closely. “Invite young people who’ll dance? Aren’t you going to dance? You do know how, don’t you? I mean, you didn’t find a murder at Cranleigh Hall to get out of dancing.”

“Certainly I know how to dance. I’ll show you, on the night—after all, if you’re attending as my special guest, it would be incredibly rude to fail to dance with you.”

“You’ll have to dance with me twice. You owe me one for the one you missed at Cranleigh Hall.”

“I’ll remember,” the Doctor promised. “Now, shouldn’t you go back to bed?” The first sunlight gilded his hair.

Tegan shook her head. “I want to watch the sun come up in my garden.” She turned to face the light with one hand lifted to shield her eyes. The sun made the orange sky glow like flame and blazed on the snow. In a secret corner of her heart, Tegan let herself believe that all this glory was for her. The Doctor had not moved. Tegan put out a hand to him, and he took it. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“You’re welcome, Tegan. Now, back to bed.” He put his hand on her back and firmly escorted her inside. Tegan realized that she’d let herself get quite cold, and gladly dived under the covers without removing her dressing gown. Sleep claimed her almost immediately. If there were more dreams, she did not recall them later.


	11. Chapter 11

Tegan hadn’t much fancied working under Turlough, but he did know how things got done on Gallifrey. She liked the situation better once she saw him handle the Castellan. He didn’t ask permission for anything, he didn’t order anything done, but simply asked the Castellan what authorizations needed to be supplied by the President. The Castellan read out a long list. Turlough used an autoscriber to get it all down. Then he presented the paper to the Castellan. It had been pre-signed by the Doctor, a kind of blank check.

“Thank you, Castellan Beldred. I’ll be sure to let the President know how helpful you’ve been.” Turlough smiled; Tegan smiled; the Castellan accepted the paper. He couldn’t do anything else.

The celebration was set in a big hall near the Academy. Turlough had assigned Tegan to oversee the decorations. Tegan’s bemused vision of balloons and paper streamers was completely burst by Senfadrell.

“I am a scientist as well as an artist,” he informed her coolly. Senfadrell was a Time Lord of the Patrexean Chapter. He appeared to be in early middle age, and looked like a Spanish nobleman with his dark complexion and openly arrogant mien. “Only a deep understanding of the principles of light, sound, and spatial dimension make my work possible. The physical environment is the framework with which I craft the psychological environment.”

Tegan went for the frank approach. “I’m glad you know what you’re doing, because I don’t. All I know is what the President wants.”

Tegan looked at Senfadrell. Senfadrell looked down his nose at her. “The requirements are for the most part boring. Otherstide is a banal occasion; kept up because people enjoy doing things they’ve done a hundred times before. It panders to the lowest common denominator, but that is the politics of public opinion.”

“This year the Doctor wants to hold a dance.” Tegan watched closely, but Senfadrell did not betray any confusion.

“Is this to be a performance, or a group activity?” He arched an eyebrow.

“He wants to introduce dancing as a social activity, and encourage everyone who attends to take part. That’s why it’s going to be held in that particular space.”

“You will demonstrate this activity for me.”

Tegan took him to the hall. It had a wide center area that would be perfect for dancing. She demonstrated a few steps and explained about pairs of dancers weaving around the floor in company.

He watched her critically. “The President is fortunate that I have the time to undertake this task.”

Tegan stared at him. “It’s just a big open space. There’s plenty of room for dancing here, and there are the side areas for seating and refreshments. What is there to do that’s so complicated?”

“Humph. I’d blame this miscomprehension on your primitive origin, but unfortunately, many Time Lords have no appreciation of social environments. Open space? It’s a vast, gaping black hole in the middle of personal interactions before the dancing begins. And after? To perform these actions in groups without collision? It will be a disaster, save for my intervention. I shall go unappreciated, of course. It is the fate of genius.”

He flung his arms out. “I will partition the space with light and sound, dynamically cued by the procession of events. I must have complete control of all music. Indeed, I will have to manage it personally throughout the evening.”

“Partition with light and sound?” Tegan couldn’t help imagining a disco ball hanging from the ceiling.

“That should be obvious. Behavior can be influenced by subtle cues in the environment. Certain tones and intensities of light can create an environment conducive to social interaction in small groups, for instance. The right type of ambient sound can cut out interference from other voices in the area. People who are speaking together naturally cluster.”

“And what if you want people to feel free to move, as they should for dancing?” Tegan looked up. There were no windows in here, but the ceiling had a slant that reminded her of a cathedral.

Senfadrell moved next to her and looked up as well. Tegan was startled. It wasn’t normal Gallifreyan behavior to invade personal space.

“Vertical space can be erased or enhanced as needed,” he commented.

“On Earth, for winter festivals, we had fire light.”

“Open flames. How barbaric.”

“It makes a place seem warm and welcoming. Cozy.”

Senfadrell looked nauseated. “Does the President want ‘cozy’?” he asked, not bothering to conceal his horror.

“Otherstide is supposed to be about family, I thought.”

“Ah, yes, the larger Gallifreyan ‘family’. I’ve heard this speech. I believe the President takes it out of the back of his wardrobe and polishes it up once a year.”

Tegan laughed and he stared at her in astonishment. She couldn’t resist asking, “Is it the Speech of Rassilon?”

Senfadrell’s mouth formed unexpected dimples. Any response he might have made was interrupted by Turlough’s arrival with the Gallifreyan nutritional delivery technician. They went to the side of the hall where refreshments would be laid out. Tegan was not quite sure what these technicians did, but as long as she didn’t have to do the washing up, she was happy.

Senfadrell was not. “Oh, sweet Omega. Nutritechs. They’d mattermit the food directly into our large intestines if they could.” He’d raised his voice. Turlough looked over, but his companion did not. “As if eating were merely about providing the body with nutrients! What about the social matrix, you hack? For all you know about the psychodynamics of food intake you might as well serve it all in one trough!”

Tegan took Senfadrell by the arm. She’d been in the theatre arts program at school, and she knew something about artistic temperaments. “I’ve got something to show you, Lord Senfadrell, that you might find creatively inspiring.”

“What? Oh, very well.” He let her lead him out. Tegan noticed the tech put Turlough between herself and Senfadrell. Turlough was grinning. She chose not to wonder why.

“You know what I think is needed? Something more like natural light. What’s the point of having a winter festival if you can’t tell it’s wintertime?”

 

 

Later, Tegan found herself dealing with a more intractable temperament. She was beginning to get shouty. “Nothing you do is going to make me look like a Time Lady! Don’t show me anything with those high collars. They look ridiculous on me.”

Oh, God, she was arguing with a machine. And she swore it was sulking; the panel had gone gray. Reason, that was the way to go about it.

“I’ll wear gold and white, since I’m going with the President, and I want to honor that. But it is not a formal occasion, and I want something easy to move in. Not too heavy or bulky. The long skirt is fine. No, that looks like a box with sleeves.” The matter of her dress for the Otherstide party was proving trickier than Tegan had anticipated. It’s not like she wanted something fussy, so why was she fussing over it?

The solution, she realized at last, was to work out what she wanted on paper. The damn wardrobe could apparently produce almost anything by way of clothing, as long as you didn’t ask it for a bra. That seemed to be beyond the grasp of Gallifreyan fashion technology. Support was built in to her clothing, palpable in result, but by means undetectable to Tegan.

The visitor chime sounded. Tegan remembered that she’d invited Leela to have tea in her garden. Was it that late already? “Authorize,” she said and went to meet Leela. “Welcome. I think I’ve got tea laid on, if I made the computer understand me. I’m better with machines that I can touch.”

The way to the garden passed through Tegan’s work area. Leela paused to look at the sketches. “I see you do not like what the imager offers you. You have gone to much effort.”

“I’m going with the Doctor. I wanted something special. Not that he’ll notice, but I’ll know I made the effort.”

Tea was set out on a low stone table. The table, the flagstones surrounding it, were all warm. A pair of cushions had been provided for seating.

It was snowing. The snowflakes fell down upon them, and were vaporized before they touched Tegan or her guest, or any of the tea things. She could feel a little burst of warmth if it happened close by. It was silly and extravagant but delightful. It amused Leela, bringing a child-like smile to the warrior’s face.

“The Doctor gave this place to you?”

“For the duration of my visit to Gallifrey. I can change it, too. I don’t want to make any major changes but I’d like to add something. Something small and simple and beautiful. Something that will last.”

“Something alive?”

“Yes! I knew you would understand, Leela.”

“I will think on it.” Leela selected another biscuit. “The Doctor notices everything.”

“What?” Tegan paused, teacup halfway to her mouth. Oh—she’d said earlier that the Doctor wouldn’t notice she’d made an effort to look nice for him.

“He notices everything, but he does not always act on what he sees. Sometimes he plays the fool and pretends he did not see it, and the first one he fools is himself.”

Tegan couldn’t argue with that. “Well, he’ll notice, then. I’m not asking for anything.”

Leela nodded. “It is a gift, freely given. Like the garden.”

Tegan sipped at her tea, feeling wary. Leela did not chatter like other people. She spoke to the purpose.

“Keludar asked to be remembered to you. I told him you would not have forgotten him.”

Tegan winced and put down her teacup as if it had burned her. “Of course I haven’t.”

“He has done something to displease you. Should he be punished?”

“Did he say he had displeased me?” Tegan demanded, suddenly angry.

“He did not say. Yet before your visit to the Outside you were often in his company, and now you shun him.”

“I’m not shunning him. It hasn’t been that long since… since I saw him.” Tegan knew she was giving her upset away.

Leela didn’t rise to the bait. A woman of Tegan’s time might have asked Tegan to talk about it, encouraged her to share. Leela, it seemed, did not gossip. “If there is a conflict between you, the two of you should discuss it. It is better to be open enemies than refuse to face one with whom you disagree. That is cowardly.”

Tegan felt thoroughly scolded. Leela practiced what they’d started calling ‘tough love’ back on Earth of her era. “I guess I shouldn’t hole up here any more. He’ll think I’m afraid of him.”

“You are not, of course. That is well said. Now, shall I help you with your dress? I know how to make the machine minds obey me.”

“It’s the collar. I hate those high collars everyone wears. I give it a new design and it messes up the collar every time.” Tegan spoke of the dress, but she was really thinking of Keludar. She didn’t know what to say to him.

 

She knew where to casually run into Keludar. There was no shopping on Gallifrey, but there were public areas where food could be shared. Certain areas were allowed to serve as public performance venues, and private citizens would play instrumental music. The closest thing she heard to singing came from a musician who mixed vocal tones with the sound of his instrument. He didn’t use words, unless he was using a language the translator circuits couldn’t, wouldn’t, or were not permitted to translate. He was a favorite of Tegan’s. His music reminded her of Aboriginal tribal music. It had a warm, pulsing bass note that was felt more than heard, and a higher pitched tweeting; it felt like it came from an idea of music that was profoundly foreign to her ears, but had a sense of its own even though she didn’t understand it.

Tegan got a cup of a fruit juice, and sipped now and then, waiting. She supposed she could have arranged to meet Kel, but she was still working out what to say to him.

“Have you succeeded in getting the taste out of your mouth?” Kel spoke from behind her, and then circled around her seat to stand before her.

It was such a nasty thing to say that Tegan wanted to see by his face if he meant it. He smirked at her, but no pretense of wit served to cover the rage in his eyes. Chilled, she shrank back in her seat.

He turned his back on her. His shoulders sagged. “I apologize.”

She finished her drink so she could discard the cup. “For what you said a moment ago, or for something else?”

Kel chuckled briefly and turned to face her. “Maybe both. Maybe neither. You disturb my equilibrium. I do like surprises, but you are never what I expect.”

This kind of talk made Tegan’s head spin. It was so indefinite, implying much and saying little. “You apologized because it’s my fault, is that what you’re saying?”

“That is the unfortunate logical reduction of my speech. My equilibrium is disturbed, you may recall.” His smile became positively sunny.

“Don’t you need to be tougher than that if you expect to be a Time Lord?”

Keludar laughed. It was unabashedly theatrical. Everyone within the area turned and stared. Only for a moment did they stare; and then turned away as if erasing Keludar from all perception.

It creeped Tegan out, all the more because there was genuine emotion behind his laugh.

He dropped down to one knee at Tegan’s feet like a suitor in a Victorian melodrama. “I’m never going to qualify, Tegan. Bad blood, very bad.” Keludar was all smiles, his blue eyes glittered.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She frowned at him.

“When a Time Lord is made, his gene pattern is added to the Looms. It is a statement of fitness; you are now automatically of superior quality and your genes will help form the future of Gallifrey. If a Time Lord is later disgraced, then the genes are removed from the Looms. This does not happen often. The Time Lords value intelligence even in a criminal.”

“Or a renegade?” Tegan felt a qualm, thinking of the Doctor’s checkered past.

Keludar put his hands on the edge of the seat, flanking her hips, and leaned forward. His eyes narrowed. “The Doctor’s genetic fitness has been questioned, but his pattern remains in the Looms although it is not favored. That may perhaps change. But if you consider the matter carefully, my dear Tegan, you will realize that before the disgraced genes are deleted, they will have produced new Loomlings. I must confess to a dreadful lapse in taste when selecting my ancestors. My progenitors include such luminaries as Borusa, Goth, and Koschei.”

Tegan only knew one of those names. “But Lord Borusa was much respected until … I mean, you can’t help it. Why should it matter if you’re smart enough? What will they say, you’re descended from Borusa, so you’re out?”

“Not in so many words.” He kept his eyes on her face as if expecting a particular response. “I did not rely on words. I ran the numbers. No one who has a significant percentage inclusion of Koschei’s gene pattern has been made a Time Lord since he was officially disgraced. I had hoped Borusa’s favor would see me past that.” He sat back on his heels and shrugged, still smiling.

“Who are these people, Goth and Koschei?”

Keludar tilted his head to one side, displaying a razor edged whimsy that set her nerves jangling in alarm. “Goth was a candidate for Presidency. He framed the Doctor for the last President’s assassination, in cooperation with Koschei. Koschei is the former name of the Time Lord you know as the Master.”

Tegan flinched and put up a hand to ward him off, though he had not moved. He smiled, like the Master always smiled; smiled rather than show any honest feeling.

“While there is a fixed limit of time by which a student must qualify as a Time Lord, you can be told you are disqualified any time before then. In my case, I anticipate that unless I do something drastic, time will simply run out.”

“That’s a pretty raw deal. I’m so—“ Tegan never completed the sentence, for Keludar vaulted to his feet.

“Numbers do not lie. Are you afraid of me, Tegan?”

She had to crane her neck uncomfortably to see his face with him standing so close. “You do scare me a little, but I like you anyway.” She added gamely, “It’s not your fault who you’re descended from.”

He cupped her cheek with one hand and brushed his thumb across her cheekbone, smearing a trace of wetness away. “I didn’t mean to speak of this. Perhaps we may talk again later.” His hand dropped away.

“Are you coming to the Otherstide party?”

“I cannot fail to witness the spectacle of the High Council dancing. The President may have to repeal the laws of gravity. Unnecessary in his case though it may be.”

“He claims to know how to dance. He hasn’t proved it to me, yet.”

“Hasn’t he? Ah, well, you’ll know on the night.”


	12. Chapter 12

The dress came to rest on her skin like a soft breeze. Tegan regarded herself in the imager. When she flirted her hips, the skirt swirled around her calves. The material resembled matte white silk, but the right angle of light awoke gleams like sunlight on snow from embedded crystals.

Leela’s influence had pruned the excesses of Tegan’s imagination. The style made her think of old-fashioned glamour. All that was missing was cleavage, for the neckline modestly skimmed her collarbones. In back, it dipped far enough to show the corners of her shoulder blades. It satisfied Tegan to wear something that was definitely not a high collared Gallifreyan style. _Look at the human being. She has skin, and she’s not afraid to turn her back on you._

“Hah! Now… close-up,” she said, and the imager produced a magnified vision of her face so she could check the minutiae of her make-up. Knowing she’d be surrounded by women who were centuries old, Tegan had not tried to compete in dignity and had chosen a fresh-faced look. There was one unusual touch. She’d requested something to add a bit of shine to her hair along with the curl control. Her gelled fingers had run through her dark auburn hair, sculpted it off her neck in softly tousled curls, and left trails that now sparkled like embers.

The door chime sounded. If she knew the Doctor, that was the sound of his patience running out. She grinned at her image and twirled to make her snowscape dress shine. It was Tegan vs. Gallifrey. She walked to the door in long, free strides. Her dress would be fine. Leela knew what was appropriate.

“Ah, Tegan, at last,” said the Doctor when she came out.

“I thought you’d have to ring again.” Turlough turned to look at her from his lounge seat. His eyebrows climbed his forehead, and he quickly stood up. “Very nice, Earth Female. I see we all made an extra effort.”

He had gone with a military cut outfit in deep green with accents of tan. It had unfamiliar lines that Tegan supposed came from Trion styles.

Of course, the Doctor was in Presidential white and gold. He’d told her he felt it best to remind people who he was even in unofficial moments, especially as his physical appearance was so youthful. Like Turlough, he had shed the usual long robe for jacket and trousers. His clothes resembled the uniform of the Presidential guard, but lacked armor, weapons, helmet, and cloak. Something about his appearance was familiar, and she caught herself staring at him. She quickly turned to Turlough. “You both look nice. Are you going to dance, Turlough?”

“How could I not show my support? Certainly I will.” He was smirking, and she couldn’t figure it out, no matter how much she glared at him.

Tegan missed the Doctor’s approach until he offered his arm. “Let’s go. It’s bad form to be late to my own party.” She put her hand on his arm and smiled up at him. His hair had been trimmed, and he looked not much older than she and Turlough. She realized he reminded her of a dancer she’d seen in a ballet, the Nutcracker. It had been all over the television the last couple of Christmases. His broad shoulders and lean form added to the impression of a fairy-tale prince. Of course, his trousers were nowhere near as tight as Baryshnikov’s ballet tights.

She hoped she’d be able to look at the Doctor without thinking that, or else she’d spend the rest of the evening blushing. Tegan deliberately held herself straighter and set her chin at a defiant tilt.

“Tegan, you look like you’re going to do battle. This is supposed to be a party,” the Doctor reminded her.

“Then why do you keep fiddling with your collar?”

“I do feel a bit, er, shall we say, shiny?”

Tegan patted his hand. “We look twice as shiny together. No one will be able to see us for the glare. Is that all the choice there is in Gallifreyan formal party wear? Either a robe or a uniform?”

“A robe would have been the normal choice, but not for a party that includes dancing. The wearer expects to move at a brisk walk, not a foxtrot.”

Turlough said from behind them, “The uniform cut was my idea. My home planet has a militarized culture. Uniforms are always appropriate formal wear. For those who don’t actually belong to the military, there’s the concept of a Clan uniform that’s appropriate for functions with an official flavor. We wear Clan colors. It saves one from having to live with the outcome of one’s personal taste. No one can be blamed for a uniform.”

Tegan nearly stopped in her tracks, but the Doctor was still moving and she took a long stride to catch up. “So what are other people going to be wearing?” she asked, her mind boggling.

“As event coordinator, I did send out suggestions. How they were received is anyone’s guess. We could be walking in on a fashion disaster of epic proportions.”

“Then the Doctor will feel right at home.” Tegan grinned over her shoulder at Turlough. He made a little snort of laughter and the Doctor sighed.

“And the two of you will be in the thick of it with me,” he retaliated.

“I’m ready for it, Doctor. I’m wearing high heels.” Giddy, she spun out ahead of the Doctor and let him draw her back to his side. He was smiling, one eyebrow quirked. Tegan did not realize there was something odd about the silence afterwards until Turlough broke it.

“Save the dancing for later. I think we’re going to have to ease the guests into it,” he said, glancing at the Doctor.

“Dancing is basically visual music, and thus inherently mathematical. They should be able to follow the patterns after seeing them, but I don’t know how many will enjoy it,” the Doctor said. Tegan glanced at him as he spoke, and caught him quickly looking forward and away from her.

Turlough added slyly, “You do realize that the guests will be mostly male, yes?”

He was trying to catch her in some human sexual hang-up. Tegan considered herself broad-minded. “As long as they can settle who’s going to lead without a fist fight, I don’t see that’s a problem.”

“There will be a higher proportion of women here tonight than the average ten percent. Lady Flavia supplied me with a list of invitees that she desired should attend,” the Doctor commented. “You know that women are underrepresented in our government. An informal occasion can be an excellent opportunity to mix with people of high rank.”

“I thought tonight wasn’t supposed to be political,” Tegan said in dismay. 

“Dancing is a continuation of politics by other means,” Turlough quipped.

Tegan had a vision of the Doctor swamped by eager young Time Ladies who wanted to get close to the most highly ranked Time Lord on the planet. “You still owe me two dances, Doctor.”

“I remember.” The Doctor laid his hand lightly over hers where it rested on his arm. “I shall claim them if I can get through the mob.” He sounded amused, but there was no time to find out what was so funny. They had arrived.

The evidence of Senfadrell’s aesthetic sense lay accomplished before them. The hall projected warmth without coziness and peace without monotony. Tegan had dragged Senfadrell up to her garden and talked his ear off about natural light and he had treated her to a tirade about artistic clichés. Tegan looked around and considered that she’d won that argument.

 

Lady Flavia swept up to them. She wore Prydonian scarlet and orange, but the exact shades were carefully balanced and gave her the warm glow of a Queen Mother. Her gown was reminiscent of an Elizabethan style, with a high back collar and a square neckline. She did not do anything so radical as to show skin: the décolletage was filled with the same gold lace that trimmed the hems of her dress. The skirt, however, was not the giant bell of Elizabeth’s court, but a soft drape, full enough for easy motion. “Ah, Doctor, there you are. I’d like to present some of the junior Time Ladies to you before the festivities commence. Do you have a moment?”

Tegan followed the Doctor’s glance over to the cluster of Gallifreyan women. They were dressed along the same lines as Flavia, though with different colors according to chapter. They were as stately as a patch of lilies, though not even one wore white. Tegan felt a qualm about her dress and resolutely quashed it. She’d expected that the Gallifreyans would resist dipping below the level of formal wear.

“Certainly,” the Doctor said, smiling.

“Thank you. Tegan, Turlough, I wish you felicitations of the day. I understand you had a hand in the arrangements. Well done.”

“Thank you, my lady,” they chorused. Lady Flavia bore the Doctor off. Tegan watched amusedly as the women did indeed cluster. She wondered how it felt for a Gallifreyan male to be surrounded by Gallifreyan women. That must be a rare occurrence.

“He looks like a prince tonight,” Turlough said.

“You both do,” Tegan said generously. Turlough looked self-assured in uniform. Perhaps that’s why he’d hung onto his school uniform for so long.

“Thank you. We had quite an argument over my designs. He threatened to wear his cricket clothes and I asked him if he was going to gild his celery.”

Tegan laughed. “I bet he wishes he’d won that battle. I’m glad he didn’t.”

“I did mention that you were dressing in Presidential colors to honor him. That was a clincher.”

Tegan glanced over to find Turlough looking thoughtful. “Penny for ‘em?’

He grinned at her. “You may find this hard to believe, but I’ve enjoyed planning this event. Not because I care about tonight so much, but it felt good for the three of us to be together again. It felt like he was the Doctor again, and not the President.”

“But you’ve been working with him all this time on… political stuff.” Tegan waved an impatient hand. “I’ve hardly seen him at all, and when I have he’s so tired and so busy I feel like I’m adding to his load.”

“You should go ahead and intrude. The Doctor needs more breaks in the routine. He asks me about you; wants to know that you’re doing all right. He’d probably prefer to hear it from you.” Turlough glanced over at the Doctor. He stood out easily as the tallest person in the group. “You’re right that he’s busy. I may see him every day, but I work on the periphery. The senior Time Lords aren’t really interested in what an alien exiled from his own world has to say. There’s nothing as hidebound as a mind that’s been thinking the same thoughts for a couple of thousand years.”

“Professor Omicron isn’t hidebound.”

“Who is that?”

Tegan paused. She’d expected Turlough to know the name, either from the Doctor or from the students. “He’s retired from teaching. I met him in the library. I thought you spent a lot of time at the Academy.”

“I do, but not in the library. The student body is a political organization, you know. Kind of a microcosm of Gallifrey in the future. Time Lords mentors groom their potential juniors, offering them advanced training and field experience. The whole question of how to manage the Web of Time is one of political science. Is something wrong?” Turlough touched her shoulder.

_Morbius is a proscribed topic_. “No wonder it’s such a pressure cooker. Look, I thought tonight was not supposed to be business. That’s what the Doctor said.”

“He meant that the High Council is not supposed to conduct business. He wants people who usually don’t speak to rub elbows.”

Tegan nodded her head towards the Doctor and his bevy, trying not to smirk. “Is that what he’s doing now?”

Turlough smirked outright. “Close enough. We’re supposed to mix, too. In your case, I suggest you simply dance with everyone who asks you, and enjoy yourself.”

“We’ll see how the dancing goes over with this crowd. Did you really send out a briefing for the party with dance instructions?” Tegan still couldn’t believe it.

“Certainly. It’s mathematical, like music; music represented visually. Gallifreyans should be able to pick up the steps easily enough.”

“It’s an art, not a science,” she grumped, “It’s more than putting your feet in the right place, it’s the whole line of your body.”

“Then you’ll have to show them.”

 

“The light over the dance floor is deliberately obscuring the space while other areas are bright so as to concentrate the attendees into a social dimension. I’ve planned extremely delicate effects to occur during the dancing activity. It was a last minute thought, but one must work with the inspiration of the moment.”

Senfadrell had insisted on leading Tegan everywhere around the hall to show her his final setup. She hoped she wouldn’t find herself tired out too early. “That’s what dancing is supposed to be. And what sort of effects might I expect?”

“It shall all work perfectly well. My work engages with life and motion, and transcends mere mathematics. Technology is for machines. This has been quite an interesting challenge.”

“I’m glad you agreed to lend us your genius, Lord Senfadrell.” Tegan had noticed early on that he never minded a bit of extra flattery.

“You have a talent for design. Your own dress suits the theme of this evening well, even if it is quite… human. It’s cut specifically to facilitate motion, yes?” Senfadrell examined her with more interest than he usually showed a design element.

“For dancing, yes. Look, there’s Turlough waving at me. I must join the others. Thank you, Senfadrell, it all looks splendid.”

The guests had assembled. It was time to rock Gallifrey.


	13. Chapter 13

Tegan hurried across the dimly lit dance floor then out into the brighter gathering area. The light here was softly golden, evoking to her mind candlelight. The assembled guests parted to let her through to the Doctor, who held out his hand in invitation. In white and gold, he was the brightest figure present. She took his hand and let him settle her at his side.

The Doctor started to speak, but Tegan didn’t take in a word he said. When she faced the crowd, she immediately saw Keludar standing at the back. The golden light picked out his blond head, but did little to illuminate his clothing. Just as the Doctor was the brightest figure present, Keludar was the darkest.

She felt a warning squeeze on her arm, though the Doctor continued speaking with no change in his voice. “May this gathering and all Gallifrey experience a peaceful Otherstide.” The greeting concluded, he led her forward to circulate among the guests. People drifted off into smaller groups to speak with each other or partake of the refreshments.

A tall red-haired Time Lady moved into their path. Instead of a gown, she was wearing the military style jacket and trousers in Arcalian green. Her adoption of the military look included her hair. It resembled an old-fashioned sugar-bowl cut with straight, blunt ends. “Good evening, Lord President.” Her blue eyes flicked to Tegan, and she added civilly, “And to you, madam.”

“Good evening, Lithasomralirdan. I’m so glad you came; splendid trousers. Tegan, allow me to present Lady Lithasomralirdan, Gallifrey’s Prime Director of Celestial Harmonics. Lady Lithas, my companion, Lady Tegan of Sol 3.”

“Hello,” said Tegan breathlessly. What was this ‘Lady Tegan’ business about anyway? She was going to have a word with the Doctor when she could get him in private.

“Welcome to Gallifrey, Lady Tegan.” Lithas’ stare would have normally been intimidating, but past her shoulder, Tegan could see Keludar. He glanced briefly in her direction.

“I hope you intend to dance, Lithas. Very good exercise, dancing,” the Doctor said enthusiastically.

“That is the intent behind these trousers. I find I approve of them.” She glanced over at Chancellor Flavia.

“Perhaps there will be a trend and I’ll have to wear a dozen meters of cloth only on the most solemn occasions.”

“Or maybe just add a stalk of gilded celery?” Tegan asked to be saying something. The stately Lady Lithas made her feel like a dwarf.

“Celery?” Lithas looked bemused.

The Doctor coughed. “A sometime affectation of this incarnation. Excuse me, my lady, I promised to introduce Tegan to everyone.”

She smiled and moved on. The Doctor and Tegan walked only a few steps before another guest came to them. This one was a tall man wearing a deep red Guard uniform with silver trim. His hair was a mass of blond curls, and he was powerfully built for a Gallifreyan. “Lord President.” He inclined his head slowly.

The Doctor’s arm tensed under Tegan’s hand. “Commandant Maxil. How nice of you to join us.”

“I’m on duty, as Commander Andred is attending. ‘A guard may rest—‘“

“’--but the Guard never does.’ I have no doubt that you will oversee your duties tonight with the dedication I remember so well. Tegan, Commandant Maxil is the highest-ranking Guardsman. Commandant Maxil, this is Lady Tegan, my guest.”

Maxil had the eyes of a policeman, observant but expressionless. “Otherstide greetings, Lady.” 

“The same to you,” Tegan said a little shortly, unnerved by the hostility she sensed flowing between the Doctor and Maxil.

Maxil and the Doctor exchanged brusque nods, and Maxil took his leave.

“You meant it when you said everyone?” Tegan whispered to the Doctor, hoping against hope.

“Oh, yes. Courtesy demands it.”

“That was courteous?”

“Last time we met, he executed me, or so he thought.”

“Right. Lead on then, must do the civil.” She glanced back and saw Lady Lithas approaching Maxil. 

 

Everyone, Tegan; Tegan, everyone. If only it could have been done so, as Caligula had once desired the Roman mob to have one neck for the stroke of his sword.

She found the names stuck in her head surprisingly well. Tegan suspected the Doctor had something to do that. Turlough turned up when the Doctor found himself in a cluster of Academy students. He and Tegan took turns introducing them to the Doctor. It was a convivial group. They seemed excited at being in the presence of the President, an excitement she’d never felt from the Time Lords.

Keludar waited on the edge of the group. His clothes had the same military cut as the other outfits, but he’d chosen dark grey with silver trim that had the faintest tint of purple. It was a tiny concession indeed to Patrexean heliotrope. Turlough kept an eye on him, but he deliberately kept back so as not to be in a position for an introduction until he was last. Then he stepped forward to stand directly opposite the Doctor.

Seeing them so close together, Tegan was struck by their similarity of form, a resemblance heightened by the contrast of their clothing. Keludar wore his most brilliant, most reckless smile. “Won’t you introduce me to your old friend, Tegan?” he inquired.

Tegan wanted to smack him one. She didn’t know what he was up to, except that it was trouble. “You’ve already met, haven’t you? When you invited me and Turlough to visit the Academy.”

“So I have. I’m so sorry, Excellency, I seem to have forgotten. I was there to see Tegan.”

The Doctor used his driest voice. “My lack of consequence in that context is understandable. I’m glad to see you here and renew our acquaintance. It gives me a chance to thank you for looking after Lady Tegan. I appreciate your efforts.”

“It was no effort on my part. I am sure you are not surprised to hear that I enjoy her company.” Keludar tilted his head slightly, his smile never dimming.

That attitude, so like the Master’s, made Tegan shiver. The Doctor’s hand moved to her back. She looked imploringly at Turlough.

He stormed the breach. “I hope you also enjoy my company, Keludar, because I planned to ask you to dance. After Ambirren, of course.”

The Doctor turned away, bringing Tegan with him. She was glad to escape the awkward scene.

“Why did you call me that?”

He didn’t look at her. “It is a courtesy title you deserve as my friend and my guest and… mmm, it signals that I will not tolerate you being treated disrespectfully. Turlough has one as well.”

“Thanks, Doctor, I suppose. It does feel a little like you’re shoving me down these people’s throats.”

“What an alarming image.” He cleared his throat. “Now, as for your friend, Keludar, he doesn’t seem to like me very much.”

Tegan looked up at the Doctor to find him now looking back at her. “No, he doesn’t. I don’t know what he thinks he’s accomplishing with his antics but I don’t like it.”

The Doctor ruffled a hand through his hair. “He certainly has a knack for spectacle.” He stared at her a moment longer, then asked, “Do you like him?”

“I like him,” said Leela. She came up to them accompanied by Andred who was looking particularly wooden.

The Doctor blinked at Leela. She added, “He fights for what he wants. Not well, but he fights.”

Andred muttered, “As long as he sticks to fighting with words, I don’t care.” Like the rest of the handful of Guard officers attending, he wore an actual uniform. Instead of the red with white trim of the Capitol Guard, he wore light grey with red. It was an odd but pleasing combination, and contrasted well with the smoky deep red of Leela’s severe gown. This was almost Oriental, with a Mandarin collar and cap sleeves. Instead of a narrow sheath skirt, fabric flowed softly from a high waistline. It reminded Tegan of a gown that might be worn by a pregnant woman, but no extra bulge was present on that lean body.

“Come now, Andred, surely the Outer Guard is used to dealing with young scamps like that.” The Doctor smiled innocently.

“True, Lord President. Our records on Academy security incidents go back a long way and hold names that now belong to senior Time Lords.” Andred leveled a dark gaze on the Doctor. Leela grinned approvingly. Tegan giggled.

The Doctor coughed. “Ah, well, no use digging up the past. Have you tried the refreshments? I told them to put out all the traditional Otherstide food. I should see that Tegan gets something to eat.”

“I can feed myself, Doctor,” Tegan protested. “You’re my date, not my nanny.” She grinned at him and took herself off to the buffet. Apparently, buffet was a concept that spanned many civilizations. So was dating oh God he was her date.

Tegan stopped in front of the table and stared blindly over the spread. She didn’t see the prettily arranged pills, or the carefully constructed tidbits of actual food, nor the drink fountains. Of course it wasn’t a real date. So what if he’d asked her to go with him? It was a formality. He was hiding behind her to avoid doing business. Like the female friend of a closeted homosexual, she was his beard. In this case, she was, well, his leisure suit.

“Have you tasted the cerub nuts?”

Unless the Doctor was gay. It had already occurred to Tegan already that on a planet that was ninety percent male and ten percent female, that eighty percent were not going to have a Slot B for their Tab A. With a significant majority of both sexes opting out of the equation, the odds were that gentlemen preferred gentlemen.

“The lushberry liqueur is only served on Otherstide. You should try it.”

He had been working with Turlough. And what about his old school chum, the Master? For all his attempts, the Master didn’t actually seem that enthusiastic about killing the Doctor. Always had to make a game of it. Tegan shuddered.

“Are you all right?”

“What?” Tegan turned abruptly and bumped into a man who was unexpectedly close behind her. She took a step back and nearly lost her balance. He steadied her with a hand on the arm.

“Excuse me. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Tegan recognized Lord Martusan, who worked under the Castellan. He had brown eyes and grey-flecked brown hair. He was quite good looking, and had a pleasant smile, which was currently on display. “Sorry, I was lost in thought. Did you say something about nuts?” _And when I first met the Doctor, he was traveling alone with Adric…_

“Yes. Cerub nuts.” Without releasing her arm, Martusan reached past her, and retrieved what turned out to be a tawny nut. “They’re hollowed out and refilled with a mix of the nut meat and sweetener.” He smiled at her and popped the nut into his mouth while holding Tegan’s gaze.

At the very moment Tegan realized that the Time Lord infringing on her personal space knew exactly where to find Slot B, the Doctor showed up.

“Hello, Martusan. Enjoying the party, I hope?” The Doctor’s smile never faltered. Martusan carefully detached himself from Tegan’s arm and withdrew a few crucial inches. Tegan knew an exchange of messages had taken place. She didn’t think anything as rarefied as telepathy was involved; more sort of a Morse code by testosterone emission.

“Yes, Lord President. The company is… charming.” Martusan cleared his throat and repositioned himself out of their conversational space.

_Of course, there was that Time Lady. Adric was always wittering on about Rosanna. Or was it Romelda?_ Tegan turned around and found a dish of cerub nuts. She reached for one and found the Doctor putting a cup in her hand.

“Try the liqueur instead. You might find the nuts not to your liking. They’re hallucinogenic. Oh, and they taste a little like truffles.”

“Is this party going to be fun at some point?” Tegan took the drink. It had a pleasing sweet-tart berry flavor.

“I don’t know how much more fun I can take,” the Doctor sighed. He also passed over the nuts, and took a food pill.

“Have a cup with me, Doctor. It’s traditional. What’s next? That dramatic recitation, yes, and then the dance?”

The Doctor helped himself to the liqueur. “Yes, all traditional elements of Otherstide, apart from the dance.”

“So it is just like a family holiday dinner. You have to do all the traditional stuff because it’s what people expect and then the host makes everyone play some game they’d rather not, but they humor him because he bought the drinks.” Tegan chuckled at the Doctor’s pained expression.

“You have become prematurely blasé, Tegan. I think there are a few surprises yet in store for you.”

Tegan had become accustomed to the sensation of being among people who knew more than she did. It was the very definition of the Gallifreyan tourist experience. So the Doctor’s smug tone did not bother her at all. Not the slightest.

“If this was Christmas back in Brisbane, my cousins would be brawling in the yard over football.”

“Is that a uniquely Australian custom at holidays?”

“I think it’s just male,” Tegan said sweetly. The Doctor did not do a spit-take, but he did give Tegan a narrow-eyed look over the rim of his cup. She savored it.


	14. Chapter 14

The dramatic recitation was a trial of her willpower. Tegan knew she’d not dare close her eyes or the measured cadences of the presenters would put her to sleep. Two minutes in, realizing her peril, she decided she’d rather drop dead of boredom than embarrass the Doctor. It was more like a ritual recitation, highly stylized, for an audience that wanted to hear the same thing they had always heard. It _was_ Gallifrey. If only she could understand it, maybe she’d understand this strange, cold world better.

_“’As youths, they called each other by names that are lost to history. But it is said that when they met in maturity, they recalled their friendship. Rassilon said to Omega, “I will not have it said that any other esteems you more than I.”’_

_“’Omega replied to Rassilon, “No other could be a greater friend to me than you.”’_

_“’Said the third of their number, “Forthwith call me the Other, for my esteem of Omega equals yours, Rassilon, even as I consider you equally my friend.’”_

The elite were seated up front, with others either sitting or standing at the back. Tegan missed Keludar’s company. While she sat in the front row next to the Doctor, playing the Lord President’s date, the students were being mildly rowdy in back. If she knew Keludar, he was supplying snarky commentary on the performance.

_“’Omega cried out, “I will do this thing by my own hand, for I would bring no one else into danger.’_

_“’And the Other said to him, “Then by your own hand you will fall, for this task is too great for one alone.’”_

She could feel someone watching her. When Tegan looked over her shoulder, she met not Keludar’s gaze, but that of the old Time Lord directly behind her. He was scowling. There were several people looking right at her, and Tegan turned quickly to face the front. The Doctor glanced over his shoulder, sighed, and patted her arm.

_“’O, Rassilon, I fear your thirst for knowledge will lead to a dark end. We have lost Omega and now there is no other to whom you will listen.” As his words were unheeded, the Other left the Citadel and his wisdom left with him.’_

_“’When Rassilon learned that his other friend was lost to him, he proclaimed, “No Time Lord shall ever possess more than thirteen lives, for immortality without companionship is a curse.” As his thirteenth incarnation failed, he wrote his last secrets on black scrolls, that who dared read them would know they were the secrets only of death.’”_

Tegan understood that part all too well. By the Doctor’s bleak expression, he was thinking of Borusa, whom he’d last seen as a dreadful carving on the side of Rassilon’s tomb. She put her hand over his. He turned his hand to clasp hers, twining their fingers.

_“’Let us all remember that Omega gave his life for Gallifrey, that Rassilon gave his death to Gallifrey, and that the Other gave to Gallifrey a gift of which each of us decides the value: a question.’”_

Everyone applauded. At least part of Tegan’s appreciation was for having stayed awake until the end. Dancing now, please: she didn’t care how many times her toes got trampled by novice partners if she could get up and move about.

The Doctor stood, drawing her to her feet. Tegan fluffed her skirt and tried to wriggle a little to get the kinks out of her back and legs. She felt like the slightest motion she made was being scrutinized. After weeks of going almost unnoticed on Gallifrey, it was odd to suddenly be the center of attention.

The Doctor first complimented the presenters of the recitation, and then waited for them to join the other guests. He then spoke to everyone. “For Gallifrey, mathematics is the most respected science, and by logical extension, music is our most respected art. On Earth, a planet for which I have much affection,” he smiled at Tegan, “they have a term for the motion of the planets and stars they see in their sky. They call this the ‘music of the spheres.’ Sound is patterned motion, and in the art of dancing, the dancer makes visible music after the fashion of the stars. Thank you for consenting to attempt the revival of this ancient art.”

Tegan walked with her hand on the Doctor’s arm. As they reached the edge of the dance floor, light spilled into the vast empty space. A moonlight glow enfolded her and the Doctor, and she realized this was Senfadrell’s last minute inspiration. Each dancer would be surrounded by an ambient glow that was both spotlight and private world.

But she and the Doctor would be the first, alone, on the floor. With everyone watching. Tegan gulped. She, Turlough, and the Doctor had selected the order of the dances, using only a couple of variations. Tegan had practiced with Turlough, but the Doctor hadn’t the time. The music started. She found herself in the Doctor’s arms, and put a hand trembling with stage fright on his shoulder. She stared resolutely at his right ear.

“Look at me, Tegan,” he said in a low voice.

Their eyes met. Pitched to her ears alone, his voice was a deep rumble.

“Trust me. For once in your life, trust me completely.” He held her gaze. The Doctor was right. Tegan had never truly trusted him. Maybe she’d never in all her life given anyone her complete trust.

The beat struck. They moved, skimming smoothly over the floor. Tegan could not match gazes with the Doctor. She turned her face to his shoulder, but her eyes slid to his face to find him looking back. The harmonious negotiation of their steps settled all the fights they’d had, all the resentments they’d held. They were dancing together. She trusted him.

Tegan could see other couples around them, but their existence was irrelevant. The light and the music was all theirs, only theirs. He steered her as easily as a wind steers a leaf. They played with the steps. They released each other, and orbited their center until the gravitation of mutual attraction drew them inevitably together again. His smile mirrored hers.

The spell ended with the music. The private moon glow faded. The awareness of others rushed in. A blush heated Tegan’s face and she looked away. Turlough and Flavia were bearing down on them.

The Doctor leaned in, still holding her hand. “I will find you again, later. Remember, you don’t have to dance with anyone you don’t wish to dance with.”

“Yes, Doctor,” Tegan said automatically. She felt as if some part of her were still dancing. He looked closely into her eyes, smiled at her until she smiled back, then went to meet Flavia.

 

The Doctor was partnered with Flavia, and she saw Turlough with Ambirren. She wondered who would lead and privately bet on Turlough. A man she recognized as a junior Time Lord stepped into her line of sight. “May I have this dance, my lady?” The music began again, and Tegan took the offered hands. Her new partner could follow the steps and keep pace with the beat, but she could feel his stiffness. He did not surrender to the music. In her present exalted mood, Tegan felt as if she could teach an elephant to tap dance. With deft adjustments of her own steps, she drew him into the music with her. By the end of the dance he was moving almost freely.

“That was delightful. Shall we go around again?” He smiled at her hopefully.

They were interrupted. “The instructions make it clear that one should not dance with the same partner in successive dances. Bad form, you see.” Tegan recognized the man who came up to them as one of Keludar’s student friends. “May I have this dance?” he asked, cutting in smoothly. She wondered, as the music began, if Turlough had been training them.

After weeks of having Gallifreyans smile politely and dismiss her existence, Tegan was popular. They were dancing her off her feet. She hardly had time to stop before a new partner offered himself. The faces blurred together. The next one she recognized was Martusan.

“May I have this dance?”

He was reaching for her hand and she was about to say, “No,” when she saw Keludar approaching from behind him. “No, sorry, I need a break,” became, “Yes!” Music started, and the first turn of the dance showed her the Doctor behind her. He was not looking at her, but at Keludar. Martusan had neatly snapped her up under both their noses.

The music had a relaxed pace. The steps kept her close to Martusan. Tegan considered him thoughtfully. “You knew this was going to be a slow dance, didn’t you?”

“I’ve been planning this since the cerub nuts,” he admitted shamelessly.

Tegan laughed. “I’m flattered. By the way, you’re an excellent dancer for someone who is new to dancing, if that’s so?”

“Never before tonight. I find it a physically invigorating activity with an unexpected intellectual appeal. The choices of the dancers form meaningful patterns. It’s quite fascinating if you’re interested in sociology. However, at the moment I would rather enjoy your company while I have it.” Martusan adjusted his grip slightly.

Despite the fact that she was on an alien planet, surrounded by aliens, and the only other human was a woman from a feral tribe of castaways, Tegan knew exactly where she was. She was being hit on. Martusan could be thousands of years old but his type was eternal.

Just as armies have officers and enlisted, in the war between the sexes, there are certain traditional positions available. Martusan was the Suave Older Man. Tegan could feel herself slipping into the role of the Vulnerable Young Woman. Or, and this was looking attractive, she could head butt him.

“Let’s not talk,” Tegan said tightly. She fixed her gaze over his shoulder, and tried to slip back into the music. The Doctor had chosen tonight’s music. It was his personal contribution to the design of the evening.

At the end of the dance, Tegan politely thanked Martusan then got away from the dance floor. She tucked herself into a privacy cubicle and regarded her face in the mirror. For no reason she could give, her reflection was a stranger. The red sparks still glowed in her hair, but her eyes were dark pools, concealing secrets even from their own gaze.

The Doctor was her friend. She’d grown to like Turlough, but they had no real connection to each other. What was she doing here anyway? Tegan Jovanka, the ex-air hostess, had become a traveler to past, future, and the outer reaches of space. There were scientists and astronauts who’d kill to be in her high heels if they could stand where she had. Somehow, the Doctor had picked her. While technically speaking that was a completely wrong description of events, Tegan believed it implicitly. Why else had his dented old TARDIS and her aunt’s temperamental runabout rendezvoused on the Barnett Bypass? Why else had Omega picked her cousin to hold captive in Amsterdam? Either the Doctor was behind it, deliberately or not, or the Universe was conspiring to bring their paths together. That would be the blind date to end all blind dates.

He owed her another dance, but it was asking a little much of him to find her in here. Tegan fluffed the skirt of her winter sunlight dress and did a few flexes to keep her legs from stiffening up. The President’s date, the Lady Tegan, could not hide from the social event of the winter. There was a night to be seized.


	15. Chapter 15

Tegan emerged from her refuge and surveyed the dancers. The Doctor was dancing with Turlough. He was leading, which was no surprise as the Doctor never did lack for ego. But what could Turlough be saying to make him blush? It had to be Turlough’s doing, there was no other reason for such a wicked grin.

Then Leela danced by with Lithas. Leela was leading. Tegan had the distinct impression that Leela was leading whether Lithas liked it or not. There was nothing for her to read from Lithas’ imperturbable features, but Leela’s set jaw and narrowed eyes made her motion more like a wary animal than a dancer. Tegan looked around for Andred and did not see him.

“You don’t think she’ll attack Lady Lithasomralirdan, do you?” The question wasn’t addressed to Tegan. Near her were two of the young Time Ladies who were Flavia’s invitees to the party. They were talking to each other while they watched the dancers.

“She hasn’t attacked anyone for several years that I’ve heard.”

“Clearly she hasn’t completely given up on savagery. Look at her snarl! It makes me shiver, Nerin.” The young Time Lady shivered rather theatrically.

“Hedea, don’t exaggerate. Look, we’ll ask the human. She might know.” Nerin drew her buddy Hedea the few steps to Tegan’s side.

Tegan braced herself and took a preemptive grip on her temper. That didn’t stop her from eyeing the two Time Ladies with a frosty gaze. Not that she could do it half as well as a Gallifreyan. They had a temperature advantage.

“Lady Tegan, we have a question about sexual relations,” Nerin began.

“All right,” Tegan said brusquely, Australian accent going full blast.

“No, Nerin! That’s not the place to start.” Hedea explained, “We’ve noticed that Commander Andred has only danced with Leela. Leela, however, has danced with the Lord President. Just a moment ago, Lady Lithasomralirdan asked Commander Andred to dance, he refused, and then suddenly she was dancing with Leela. You didn’t see?”

“No, I was out of the room. Sorry I missed it,” Tegan said, meaning it.

Nerin broke in, “So we were wondering if Andred can only dance with Leela because of their sexual bond, if that means she’s also had sex with the President?”

Hedea shook her head, “It must go farther than that! This activity, the dancing, the choosing of pairs and ritual touching, is obviously a mathematical representation of primitive sexual practice. We are actually seeing the modeling of intimate relationships in the social hierarchy.” Hedea’s eyes glittered; she was actually flushed with excitement.

Nerin frowned. “By that theory, you’re implying that Leela has or is intending to engage in sexual relations with Lady Lithas, when obviously Leela was ensuring that Lady Lithas did not displace her with Andred. They obviously form an exclusive dyad.”

“A what?” asked Tegan, not sure whether to laugh or slap them both. She chose not to comment on Leela’s relationship with the Doctor.

“A pair with a mutual vector,” Nerin clarified.

Hedea continued to expound on her theory. “The President has danced almost exclusively with females. In primitive terms, that marks his position as the alpha male of a social hierarchy. In a culture where status is dictated by sexual prowess, he is entitled to have sexual relations with all the subordinate females.”

Tegan wondered if this conversation had anything to do with how Turlough had made the Doctor blush.

Nerin commented, “Really, Hedea? I noticed he hasn’t danced with you, yet.”

“I haven’t danced with any men yet. I believe that this activity is stimulating dominance instincts in their hind brains,” Hedea sniffed. “They don’t seem to need much stimulation, do they?”

“You’ve a point, Hedea.” Nerin turned to Tegan. “To expand on Hedea’s theory, I’ve noticed that the men were very eager to dance with you. Have you had sex with many of them?”

She’d been here before. It was like school back in Brisbane, the poor girl and the rich snotty girls. Tonight, though, she was Lady Tegan, official Presidential Date. She produced a smile, or bared her teeth, close enough. “It’s not polite to ask such questions. On my planet we say, “’A gentleman does not tell.’ In this case, a lady does not tell. As for dancing being a symbol for sex, fair enough. In my opinion, you’d both be better off if you did more dancing and less talking.”

“Interesting advice, my dear.” Another woman had come up to them. Tegan recognized Lady Thalia, a member of the Council. It was easy: Thalia wore a distinctive necklace, with thick golden plaques like a collar around her throat, and heavy pendants. To accommodate it, she showed more skin than any Gallifreyan Tegan had yet seen, including the Shobogans. Hedea and Nerin adopted chastened postures.

Thalia smiled at Tegan. “I fear some of the young people are unaccustomed to such exercises and find it tries their discipline.” Nerin and Hedea excused themselves with quick apologies to Tegan.

She did not feel safer for their absence. “The Doctor said he thought an evening of frivolity would do people good,” she ventured.

A Time Lord with a hopeful expression approached Tegan. Thalia turned on him with a look of stern inquiry. “Pardon, ladies, I did not mean to intrude,” he said, and hastily veered off.

“Pardon me for interfering, Lady Tegan, but I hoped to talk to you a little longer.”

“What’s on your mind?” Thalia made Tegan uncomfortable, for no reason she could identify.

“I shan’t speak of gossip. I would not lower myself to do so, unlike some. You and that red haired boy should never have come here. The Doctor is an idealist and there is no one more dangerous. You are primitive, but if there is an iota of intellect that is yours alone and not the Doctor’s possession, you will see what he is doing to this world. He is President, not… a deity.” She put a hand to the center pendant of her necklace. “Did you know Nyssa of Traken?”

“Yes,” Tegan admitted. Thalia had her with that name.

“She lost her entire world, along with many other worlds, to entropy. We gave our past and our future to safeguard the Web of Time. Entropy is our enemy.” Her fingers tightened, knuckles whitening, on the pendant. “You do not wish to be another Nyssa.”

Tegan wasn’t sure what to make of this, but she knew how she felt about Nyssa. She looked the old bat square in the eyes. “I could do worse.”

“Indeed, you could,” said Lady Thalia killingly, and swept off.

Tegan stared blankly after her.

 

“Would you like—“

“—to dance? Excuse me, I was here first.”

“I asked first. You rudely interrupted me.”

Tegan came out of her trance to find herself flanked by two Time Lords. Dardanian appeared to be in his fifties, and wore whatever age he was well. His hair was silver, but thick and wavy. Relnatus reminded her of Ambirren, with similar curly dark hair and eyes that were nearly golden in a dark face.

“You deliberately spoke from further away.” Relnatus glared at Dardanian.

“Can I say something? Hello?” Tegan waved a hand to get their attention. This was one weird evening. “I could dance with one of you first, and the other next.”

Dardanian smiled. “That’s a wise compromise. Relnatus, wait—“

“Why should you go first?”

“I asked first.”

“Please, not again. I’ll dance with Lord Dardanian first because he’s older. That’s polite where I come from.”

“Actually,” Relnatus said smiling, “I’m older by three centuries.”

“All right, but no more arguing. Lord Dardanian, if you still care for the next dance, it’s promised to you.” Tegan gave her hand to Relnatus and they took to the dance floor.

An hour or so and many dances later, Tegan refused the next would-be partner with the excuse that she needed to take a break. She got herself a drink and slipped out to the veranda. It was a Gallifreyan architectural feature that she had no other name for: a porch set at the back of the hall and encased wholly by some energy screen or transparent substance that housed trailing vines. It reminded her a little of the TARDIS cloister. It was also the first thing resembling a window she’d seen on Gallifrey. The transparent panes of the Spire did not count. They weren’t meant for ordinary viewing.

She stood looking over a snow-covered slope. Beyond it lay the barren lands that surrounded the Citadel, vague shadowy masses under a cloudy sky. The multi-colored lights of the Citadel made stained glass patterns on the snow.

While visiting the Shobogans, she’d seen it at night from a distance. The Citadel looked like a rocket ship from an old adventure serial, jeweled with myriad lights. How many of the Gallifreyans dwelling within had ever so seen it with their own eyes?

Tegan sighed. The music drifted from the main hall to her ears. After that first dance with the Doctor, she’d spent the night with eager but inexpert partners, who had a tendency to push instead of lead. Now, she let impulse guide her as if she were on the floor of a Brisbane discotheque. She spun so that her skirt floated out about her legs. The swish of it made her laugh and fling her arms out. This was dance, straight out of her body. The formal steps were nothing without this feeling.

During the period of her instruction, Tegan had avoided classes in modern interpretive dance. She would rather have been a stripper. She didn’t disdain that style, but baring the body was nothing compared to baring the soul. Now her body lacked the training to express what she felt. There was no cool Gallifreyan hand to moderate her motion. The music did not restrain her. She heard it with human ears and human response.

She danced, alone, and felt emotions trying to batter their way out. Even before Tegan had seen a snake skull mirrored in place of her own head, she had never been one for reflection. She did not analyze what she felt. She felt it; felt it twist her body and fling her arms wide, then snap them down until her hands were fisted at her side.

“Those steps were not in the protocol briefing for this ceremony.”

Tegan stopped and found herself facing Keludar.

 

“I thought coming in here would keep you lot out. Too much Outside.” She nodded towards the window.

“With this scenery to gaze upon, there would have been others here with us had I not the foresight to lock the door.” Keludar frowned at her. “Don’t look like that. You can unlock it and leave any time you like. I guessed you’d end up out here. You did say we would find time to talk later. Is it not later?”

Tegan snorted. “I suppose so. I’d hoped tonight would be fun, though, and you’re not here for a little light banter.”

“Is that what you were doing? It’s not wallowing in the mud, I know, but was it fun?”

“Not exactly, but it felt good, well, no.” She stretched her arms out behind her and turned away. “I was doing what I wanted to do, that’s all. That’s part of what fun is.”

“Very well reasoned. We may make a Gallifreyan of you yet.” He came closer again.

Tegan laughed. “Not likely. Even if I stayed here the rest of my life, which is about a long weekend the way you lot think.” She was facing the window. Whatever it was made of, there was no reflection in the perfect transparency to show her how close Keludar was, though she could feel his proximity.

“I can see now why your clothes are so different from any others tonight. Even Leela’s. Her clothing is always camouflage. She dresses like us only enough to fit in, but underneath she is always Leela. You… you are not hiding anything. You dressed to dance, you came to dance.” Keludar’s hands came down lightly on her shoulders, cupping the points. “What do you see out there? It’s very pretty, but it’s only crystallized water with trace minerals.”

Tegan glanced back over her shoulder, unsure if she wanted Keludar so close. But his touch was so light, his manner so genuinely sincere, that it seemed harsh to repel him. His handsome face was even more attractive with that warm smile. “Snow. Why go into the science of it? I’m not going to claim science has no artistic values, but it’s just snow. It’s clean and white and shiny. It’s new. It covers the details of the land so that all you can see are the shapes. It’s like a fresh piece of paper you could draw anything on.”

“And you’re wearing it,” he said with a chuckle she could feel puffed over her neck. His thumbs traced the line of cloth where it met her skin.

“Yeah, I guess I am. All I knew at the start was that I’d be going with the Doctor, so I wanted white and gold to match him.” She wanted to step out from under his hands, but she didn’t want to give ground. At least his touch was weightless, conceding her right to shrug him off.

“You certainly don’t match me, but I should think the contrast is striking: a fair-haired male in black with a dark-haired female in white.” He leaned closer until she could feel his breath on her ear. “Do you know why all the Time Ladies have been cold to you tonight? It’s not merely that your dress makes them look like over-upholstered statues. I quite like the ones who had the nerve to wear trousers.”

She should move, but now she was curious. Keludar could always be depended on for juicy gossip. “They’re always cold. Lady Flavia treated me no differently.”

“You’re the Doctor’s escort. Lady Flavia is a master politician. You’ve been popular as a dance partner, but you don’t seem to have realized that the men have been jostling for position to dance with you. They’ve been calculating vectors of opportunity so as to be the one by your side for the next dance.” The old mocking tone had crept back into his voice and Tegan didn’t like it.

She protested automatically, “That’s ridicu—“

“What did the Doctor say when he saw your dress for the first time?”

“He didn’t say anything about my dress. He hardly ever says anything about the way I look. He did say something about a mob, but I thought he was joking.”

“Haven’t you ever noticed how Gallifreyans wear collars with high necks? Even without the formal collar frames that stand up in back past the head?”

“Yes, wearing them makes me feel like my halo has slipped.”

“I don’t understand that reference, but you clearly don’t like them. However, there is a reason for the style. On Gallifrey, the nape of the neck is a key erogenous zone.”

Tegan scowled. “It is for humans, too. My dress is not indecent, or Leela or the Doctor would have said something before I got here. Leela is wearing her hair up off her neck.”

“But her dress doesn’t dip in the back like yours does. You’ve framed that area. It’s not indecent, but it does provoke a sexual response, especially in males.” Keludar paused, but Tegan made no more response than a soft snort. “My theory is that the prevalence of high collars began as a cultural declaration of asexuality. You, my dear Tegan, have flown in the face of a millennia-old custom. Men who may never have seen a woman’s bare neck in private, let alone in public, are realizing to their upset that it is a highly desirable sight.” His fingers tightening on her shoulders, he pressed his lips to the nape of her neck.

Tegan gasped and twisted away from his grip. The instant she moved his fingers released her. “Keep your hands to yourself, Keludar. That was rude, at the very least.” Tegan was angry, but she could see that she would have been smarter to keep her distance from him. Hadn’t there been an element of flirtation in her behavior? Keludar was very handsome and as Leela had noted, Tegan was ‘lonely in the flesh.’ 

“Yes, it was. I accepted an invitation not meant for me.” He followed her only with his gaze. “Don’t leave yet. You look like a woman who has just been kissed. It’s most becoming.”

“I am not running away from you. On the other hand, you should stay right where you are. Keludar, if you’re going to keep trying to… press your attentions on me, we are not going to be able to stay friends. If that’s what we ever were.” Tegan did not hold back her bitterness.

“I don’t regret kissing you. I wish that the invitation had been made to me. The thought of your consent to my advances is most stimulating. However, the idea that I have taken something that belonged to another has an illicit charm of its own.”

“You sound like the Master,” Tegan said, aiming to wound.

“Blood will out, as they say on your world.” Keludar laughed, and Tegan could not tell if she’d hurt him. “Are we friends, despite the vast gap between us? What means a million years of evolution if the distance between Gallifreyan and Human can be bridged by a kiss? We chose, in the time of Rassilon, to remain flesh instead of seeking to become beings of pure energy. The consequence of that choice for me is that I desire two things I cannot have: to become a Time Lord, and you. Are we friends? All I know is that I prefer your smile to your frown.”

“Hell’s teeth, all you Gallifreyans live so long to have enough time to finish your sentences. If you’re the evolved one, how come I have to answer the question?”

“You won’t let me answer it save by words. Come here, and I will give you the answer with no words at all. If I was the Doctor, would you hesitate? Are you and he friends?” 

“Of course we are, not that it’s any of your business.”

“You’d let him kiss you. I saw the way you danced with him.”

“Again, none of your business! What do you expect, Kel?” Her angry voice rang out.

He let the echoes die before replying. “Nothing. Nothing at all. I do like you, you know. I didn’t expect to like you simply because you’re nothing like a Gallifreyan. I didn’t think you’d make me laugh with you and not at you. Kissing you tasted like I was a vampire drinking life from your veins instead of heat from your mouth.”

Keludar sounded like he was the one bleeding. Tegan said remorsefully, “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

_“Don’t say that.”_ He followed the demand with a laugh. “You shouldn’t be sorry for me. For one thing, it’s not necessary. I don’t regret it. For the second, before I even met you, I wagered that I could bed you.”


	16. Chapter 16

“You’ve got to be joking.” Tegan was floored.

“I should think most of the senior students in the Academy know about it.” Keludar turned to face her, still smiling. She knew how little his smiles could mean.

“You pig.”

“Yes.”

“You lying, low-life, scum. You call this evolution? Millions of years, and you’re playing the kind of prank any idiot half-grown boy on my world might?” Tegan loaded her voice with all the venom it could hold.

“Yes.” Keludar looked back at her. He offered no denials; he did not turn away. He accepted her anger. He had the courage of his sins.

“’Yes’?” she mocked. “Is that all you have to say?”

“I apologize for my breach of your trust.” The corner of his mouth curved up, wry and futile.

“Right. Not good enough, and you know it. Go away, Keludar. Just go.” Tegan wrapped her arms around herself. She turned to the window and stared out at Gallifrey in winter. Was this the entropy that Thalia had warned her about? She could imagine a black nothingness spreading inside her.

 

Entropy, the end of worlds, happening because some Gallifreyan in late adolescence wagered he could score with her? That was her personal mess, not some world wrecking tragedy. It was farcical; it was a sex comedy movie plot. Great looking guy bets he can screw a girl sight unseen, meets her, falls for her, regrets the bet. She’d probably seen that movie and forgotten it ten minutes after leaving the cinema.

The movie, of course, ended with the guy and girl falling madly in love anyway. Movies could afford to tie up the plot threads in a bow. What was a bow anyway but a knot: a knot to be dealt with in a life that went on past the end credits?

“Tegan?” A hand touched her back, and she whirled in rage, meaning to deliver a slap Keludar would feel for the next century.

The Doctor caught her arm in mid-flight. “What happened? Are you all right?” he demanded.

Anyone would say the Doctor wasn’t as handsome as Keludar. He had hardly any eyebrows, his nose was kind of pointy, and his chin, frankly, was a little weak. However, this imperfect countenance was familiar and loved and the very sight Tegan most wanted to see. She flung herself at him and hid her face in his shoulder.

The Doctor wrapped his arms around her, and in that protective embrace, the black void inside Tegan shrank. “I am not crying!” she growled into his jacket. A bit of gold trim was scratching her forehead.

“That’s good,” the Doctor said carefully. “Do you have cause to cry?”

“Men.” She lifted her head and glared at the man who held her. “I can’t deal with men. I should have joined a convent.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” said the Doctor, with equal determination. “You belong out in the world, challenging all comers.” He smiled at her and said teasingly, “Tegan Jovanka, the Indestructible Mouth On Legs.”

Tegan surprised herself with a laugh. “I only wanted to have fun. Tonight, I mean. I wanted to dance, that’s all.”

“There are many Gallifreyans tonight who are glad your presence graced the festivities. Myself among them, of course.”

“This dress… it is all right, isn’t it?” Tegan looked for reassurance in the Doctor’s face, and found it.

“Your dress is lovely and modest. Not only do you look beautiful tonight, Tegan, but also young and innocent. If men have found you attractive tonight, is that so awful? It is not one iota your fault that Gallifreyans aren’t used to such feelings.”

“I feel young. I’ve never liked that. People call you young to have an excuse to tell you what to do.”

The Doctor’s face took on a dearly familiar cast of exasperation. Tegan felt quite at home, despite the novelty of his embrace. They didn’t speak. Into the lengthening silence rose the sound of dance music.

“Are they still dancing?”

“Yes. They’re beginning to experiment,” he said wryly.

“It sounds like dancing is going to be the latest craze on Gallifrey.”

“That reminds me: I still owe you a dance, or have you done with dancing for the evening?”

“I think I have one more left in me.”

“Brave heart, Tegan,” he said approvingly. Their stance shifted, and they began to sway with the music. They were close enough together for Tegan to rest her head against the Doctor’s shoulder. Gravitational attraction was not the only fundamental interaction taking place. Where scientists fail to model reality, the poets must step in.

The music stopped, and so did the Doctor. “Tegan?” He leaned back a little without releasing her, and looked down into her face.

In turn, she leaned back against the support of his arm and tilted her face up. “We are friends.”

His eyebrows rose. “There was some doubt?”

“I knew we were friends in the way of being willing to risk our lives for each other. You’ve offered me comfort before. But it hasn’t been so… physical. I mean, the touching, the closeness.” In fact, their bodies were lightly pressed together nearly full length. Tegan might have blushed if she had not had other things on her mind. “Was it me? Because I was so distrustful, that kept us from getting on better?”

“That was part of it, Tegan, and I was also aloof,” the Doctor said earnestly. “Life on the TARDIS is one of extraordinary circumstances. It was possible to avoid dealing with our differences. I suppose we could deal with them now, if you want to.”

“Haven’t we? That first dance felt like we settled a lot. Things have come right. That’s how I feel, anyway.” Tegan lowered her gaze to his chest. The dance was already a treasure locked away in her memories. She very nearly couldn’t think of it for fear of spoiling the sense of wonder if contained. If the Doctor didn’t feel the same way, she didn’t want to see it in his face.

A name can be only a word, but sometimes a name is the keynote of one’s being. “Tegan,” the Doctor said, his fingers under her chin gently insisting she look up.

“Lord President? Turlough sent me to find you.” It was Ambirren who called out. He paused a moment before adding, “Excuse me. He said you wanted to bring a halt to the festivities at this hour.”

The Doctor had loosened his embrace as Ambirren spoke. His hands lightly held Tegan by the arms to steady her. “Certainly. Tegan?” He released her, only to offer his elbow.

“Right. Coming,” she said, and took his arm. She felt like she’d suddenly woken up from a dream. Ambirren held the door for them, and they walked out into the hall. The murmur of voices died away quickly, leaving the music playing on alone. Then the voices started again. Tegan had never felt so looked at than while these Gallifreyans were taking care not to look. What was their problem?

She took her cue from the Doctor and stood by his side proudly unconcerned, trying to make her smile as unruffled as his while he thanked the guests and sent them home with his Presidential goodwill. She didn’t see Keludar among the departing guests.

 

“Clean and preserve the dress,” Tegan ordered the wardrobe, then yawned wide enough to hear her jaw pop. “God, what a night. Half dream, half nightmare.”

“Those terms do not match any fabrics or textures in the databanks.”

“I’m not talking to you.” Tegan submitted to the loving ministrations of her hygiene chamber and emerged clean, dry, and warm in her favorite scarlet dressing gown over a silk nighty. At least, it felt like silk, and she’d had enough of sleeping bare for a while. She planned to have a warm drink and then go to bed. On a whim, she took her mug and wandered out into the garden. Tegan found it hard to resist the decadent pleasure of the heated path that kept her warm in the middle of winter.

The lights of the Citadel were bright enough to burnish the undersides of the clouds. She turned and looked up at the spires. Could someone look down from there into the garden? She didn’t like the thought of that. Perhaps the force screen could be made opaque from the outside and transparent from the inside, like a two way mirror.

Way up there, in the highest Spire, Tegan had kissed Kel, and then dropped him like poison. She might have meant him no harm, but what could he know about kissing and sex and love? She’d stirred something inside him, and then left him to struggle alone. Gallifreyans practiced emotional detachment. They could love science and music and ideas, but loving people was too messy for them.

Now that her first flush of anger was past, Tegan felt sorry for Keludar. He’d been a bastard to make that bet then try to maneuver her towards sex, but he couldn’t know the sharpness of the weapons he’d played with. She’d let herself be flattered by his attentions, because she was lonely and he was attractive.

Tegan at seventeen would have handled it all differently. Convinced of the power of her newly acquired womanhood, she would have happily seduced Keludar and had a go at the Doctor. At that age, sex had been the ultimate expression of power and freedom. By eighteen, she’d crashed into the harsh limits of that power. Now she was a wizened hag of four and twenty. The wounds were still tender, and she had not got any closer to making something of herself.

Tegan smacked her mug into her palm, forgetting about the hot drink until it splashed her hand. She waved it about in the cool air. There had to be something useful she could do here. If all she could do was rub the Doctor’s shoulders when he’d got a headache from the weight of those relics, she’d do it. She was not a savage sex toy, no matter what some Gallifreyans were inclined to think.

She was not going to forgive Keludar just because she was lonely. If she did that, she might as well crawl into bed with him and have done with it.

Tegan went inside. She prepared a message to Professor Omicron through the special contact device, asking to see him. She had a few questions for the old fellow. Her finger hesitated over the ‘send’ key. Maybe the Doctor would prefer she brought this to him? Really, she’d suffered no harm except for hurt feelings. Why shouldn’t she ask questions? She couldn’t force anyone to answer her. If she discovered anything of importance, she’d bring it to the Doctor’s attention then.

Tegan sent the message and then crawled into her solitary bed. Under the covers, she rested in an island of warmth in the midst of a cold alien sea. The Doctor’s embrace had been more comforting still. To dance with him had brought her beyond the need for comfort. The memory of it was not the sequence of steps, the music, or even the Doctor’s touch. Such experiences could not be recreated: they were of the moment. Somewhere inside she was still dancing. She hoped she would never stop.


	17. Chapter 17

It was a new day and a new Tegan. She started by ruthlessly dominating her wardrobe. “Gathered around the neck in a soft roll… yes, like that, dark green, and I’ll have the cream and gold wrap and the brown boots.” She dragged the green sweater dress over her head and smoothed it down her body. No Gallifreyan would be titillated by a glimpse of her nape today, but the knit material clung to the rest of her. There was no skin to be seen save her hands and face, but there was a lot of Tegan on display.

It had taken her an hour to get the material right, but it had been worth it to get such a soft, lush fabric against her skin. It reminded her of angora or cashmere but was lighter than either.

Making fashion waves was something to do while she waited for answers to her messages. There were several people she wanted to speak to, but none of them had been available for direct contact.

The system chimed, then announced, “Message reply received, text: Yes. Look down.”

“What?”

“Please specify object of query.”

“Repeat the message!” Even Tegan couldn’t glare at midair, much as she wished to.

“There is no message.”

“Then what was that about ‘look down’?”

“One moment. Search for phrase ‘look down’ shows the latest instance included in an environmental update for the Presidential Garden.”

“That must be the Professor. Weather report, indeed,” Tegan grumbled, and went outside. Looking over the edge in various spots, she finally saw an arrow formed by tamped down snow on a lower level terrace that was a public garden, though she’d never seen anyone down there. She imagined the Professor in his robe and stole and cowl out tromping down the snow. “Serve him right if his toes got frostbite,” she muttered.

The exit out onto the terrace reminded her of the veranda off the festival hall. There was a force-screened area that was quite separate from the main public space. In that area was an airlock door out onto the terrace, to prevent anyone from accidentally getting a breath of fresh air. “Gallifreyans,” Tegan muttered to herself. The snow was not marked until she stepped onto it, and she wondered how the Professor had managed to make the arrow. The lines were a meter wide, but there was no trail leading to them.

Tegan circled around to the arrow line, and walked up it to the pointy bit. A blue crystal was half-buried in the snow there, and she plucked it out. The arrow pointed to a maintenance hatch on the wall. “The Professor’s gone all James Bond on me,” she sighed, and kicked calf-high snow out of her way to get over there. As she reached the hatch, the crystal in her hand glowed blue. The hatch swung open. Tegan shook her head wryly and stepped in. Behind her, she heard WHUMPF! Turning around, she saw that the snow cover of the area had been blasted up into the air. There would be no marks left. She closed the hatch behind her, and the crystal lit up in her hand and sent a beam down the corridor. Tegan followed it; it led her to an alcove set above the Panopticon galleries.

“Hello, Professor. Is all this cloak and dagger necessary?”

“Perhaps not, my dear young lady, but I thought I would practice my techniques. You did arrive here safely, did you not?” The Professor sat down.

“No one was following me. Your people aren’t that interested in what I do, with a few exceptions.”

“You may find that has changed. I was watching last night, remotely. I wanted to see the dancing. Gallifreyans do have emotions. We are trained not to act on them, but that is an ideal. I’m sure you’re familiar with the process of rationalization. It is a common sentient fallacy to invent reasons for doing what we do for no reason.”

“Like the blasted nape of my neck?” Tegan stomped back and forth and the Professor waited for her to calm down before speaking again.

“In my second incarnation, I had a relationship with a magnificent lady whose name I will not repeat. What a mind she had! Such insight, allied to incisive logic and an ability to put her thoughts into words that had me at her feet.” He folded his hands and rested his chin on them, eyes gazing into the far recesses of his memories. “The nape of the neck signifies vulnerability, a willingness to share private thoughts. Those in intimate circumstances initiate mental contact with physical contact to the nape of the neck. At least, so it was back in the day.”

“Mental contact?” Tegan put a hand up to her neck as if to shield it.

“You were no more exposed to mental contact last night than you are now. Do not let that trouble you. Gallifrey is not a world where trust comes easily. I think that is also behind those high collars. Last night, you projected an image of innocence and willingness to trust.”

Tegan remembered the Doctor asking her to trust him, and turned away so she could hide her blushing face. She felt naked. “Does everyone on Gallifrey have mental powers?”

“The talent is broadly distributed, but it takes a long time to acquire the necessary techniques. All Time Lords have a modicum of ability, for they undergo intensive training. It is rarer in ordinary citizens.”

“Are there defense techniques someone who doesn’t have powers can learn? I’ve had some bad experiences in the past.”

“You should ask your friend the President. I shall do some research on the question, as I am interested for my own reasons. Speaking of reasons, what brings you to call on an old fellow the very day after your social triumph?”

Tegan went for the blunt instrument approach. “Keludar bet I don’t know who in the senior class that he could have sex with me. You knew about this, didn’t you? You warned him to treat me respectfully.”

“He wagered with himself. Simply to succeed in fulfilling the terms of a wager is victory enough, according to the difficulty of the task. The most difficult emotion from which to detach is pride, dear child. Time Lords innumerable have succeeded in suppressing all others save that one. It is the other curse of the Gallifrey.”

“Other curse?”

“You spoke with Lady Thalia. Did you notice her necklace?” Professor Omicron leaned forward a little, as if particularly interested in her answer.

“I’d wondered about it. It looks very old.”

“It represents her genetic line’s claim to the heritage of the Pythia. Our histories of the time of Rassilon are unreliable, but they tell us that the Pythia was the matriarch of Gallifrey. She ruled by blood and by the powers of the mind, and was overthrown by Rassilon and his allies. In revenge, she is supposed to have cursed Gallifrey with sterility. This was the impetus for the invention of the Looms. That is the story; I could not say if it is a true history.”

“If the Time Lords place pride above love, then I’d say they cursed themselves. Should I do something about Keludar and his bet?”

“There is an archaic custom that allows for personal challenge in matters of insult. However, I think you would best be served by a dignified silence. You are the wronged party, it is for Keludar to make some gesture of appeasement.”

“I’m not about to challenge him to a duel. Do Gallifreyans really do that?”

“It’s not necessarily a matter of physical combat. There are duels of mental prowess as well.”

“Rrright. I’m definitely not dueling. Dignified silence is not exactly my strong point, though.” Tegan looked speculatively at Professor Omicron. “I’ve been thinking of finding some work to do. I’m tired of playing tourist. I’ve always believed in pulling my own weight.”

“That’s a praiseworthy ethic. While I’ve found your company delightful and your observations of my world most illuminating, I can appreciate that you may not feel you have been constructive. Are you going to apply to the President?”

“Lady Flavia and Lady Thalia both seem to think that I’d do more harm than good by trying to help him. Lady Thalia accused him of playing God. I didn’t think Gallifrey had religion.”

“It doesn’t, which may have been the source of Thalia’s objection.”

“He is an idealist, but how else is he going to have any hope of changing things? The Doctor came back to Gallifrey out of duty. He doesn’t want to be President.”

“My dear, that is an invalid statement. ‘Want’ and ‘wish’ are nigh mythical qualities that are attributes of a conjectural future. The Doctor decided to take up the office; he chose to do it; he did indeed do it. He performed all the necessary actions to acquire the Presidency. To say he did it against his true wishes is not merely meaningless, but insulting. It implies he does not know what he’s doing.”

“I suppose so,” Tegan said thoughtfully.

“To choose and then to act on one’s choices is the only true freedom.”

 

Once back in public, Tegan checked her contact point. She had a message from Turlough offering to meet her for lunch, and one from Leela that had a privacy flag, so she couldn’t receive it except in her apartment.

It was more convenient to meet Turlough for lunch first. He’d specified a public meeting place that seemed to be used only by pensioners and not his Academy cronies.

Tegan sat down opposite Turlough and speared him with a look. “You know about the bet.”

“I only found out last night! I would have told you if I’d known earlier.”

“Who told you?”

“Ambirren.”

“Ah,” said Tegan significantly. “Before or after you sent him looking for the Doctor?”

“After. What you and the Doctor were doing alone is not my business—“

“And what makes you think we were doing anything?” Tegan stared at Turlough until he squirmed. “Hah! A dog that will fetch a bone will carry a bone.” She ordered a fruit drink and a meal pill.

“What does that mean?”

“It means Ambirren’s a snitch. I suppose a simple hug looks scandalous to a Gallifreyan.” Tegan sipped her drink, savoring the feeling of for once having the upper hand with Turlough.

“It does.” Turlough seemed to be struggling with his words. “Tegan, no one cares about what you did or didn’t do with Keludar. Students aren’t important. The Lord President is another matter.”

“It’s Keludar I want to talk to you about. Did you tell the Doctor about the bet?”

“No. I didn’t want to bring it to his attention in case he had to do something officially.”

“What they’re calling ‘plausible deniability’ back on Earth, isn’t that so?”

“Something like that. Tegan, you’re not going to raise a fuss, are you? It wouldn’t help anyone.”

“I’m going to maintain a dignified silence,” Tegan said sourly. “Do you think the Doctor knows?”

“It’s hard to say what he knows and doesn’t know. He gets passed information through various channels, and he spends a lot of time communing with the Matrix. But a student prank? Even if it concerns you, I doubt he’d pay attention unless you complained. Are you?”

“I’ve nothing to complain of. Keludar embarrassed himself, not me. Is there any kind of rumor on that I should know about?”

Turlough blushed. Tegan washed down her food pill with the fruit drink, waiting for him to speak.

“It’s assumed by some that the Doctor has primitive companions so that he can indulge in sexual activity.” He cleared his throat. “Then there are the more conservative sort who believe he has primitive companions so that he can impress them with his intelligence.”

Tegan snorted. “That’s not far off. They don’t put much value on simple friendship, do they? What about Rassilon and his buddies?”

“A mutually beneficial alliance between those with an affinity of purpose. I think they do have friends, but they don’t admit to irrational preferences.”

“Rationalization,” Tegan murmured. Turlough looked at her sharply. “It’s so hard to tell what they mean and what is just good manners.”

“The appearance of friendliness, rather than the substance?”

Tegan cocked her head. “You’ve run into that dealing with the Academy gang?”

“Yes, but two can play at that game.” Turlough put on his nasty little smirk, and for once Tegan found an answering grin.

 

She listened to Leela's message when she got back to her apartment. It was short and to the point:

‘I knew that the dress would make you desirable in the eyes of men. Is that not what you wanted? It was a good choice. You made no pretense, but gave them the truth of you. If they felt lust, then for once they felt as men should. Do not grudge them the life in their veins. Either they are men or machine; the choice is theirs.’

Tegan had to admire the way Leela cut to the bone. “They should put you in charge of this place, Leela. That would really stir things up. You don’t have plausible deniability, you have a knife.”


	18. Chapter 18

Tegan sent a message to the Doctor’s private contact code, and then took a book out to the garden to wait for a reply. There was no telling when the Doctor would be able to make time to talk to her. She had to learn patience. Since everyone on this planet had a longer lifespan, they could always outplay her at the waiting game.

The book was a gift from Senfadrell. It was the size of a typical coffee table book, but when she opened it, the images projected above the surface: a gallery of visual art lost to time. She sat in a shady spot and studied masterpieces no human eye had ever seen. The artists used color in alien ways. Gallifreyans looked so human on the outside, that cool skin and a double pulse did not seem especially odd. Here before her was laid bare the soul of Gallifrey, beauty through the eyes of an alien race. Some of it was familiar from her trip to the Outside. She had seen a silver leafed forest shining in amber sunlight. She had seen the real Tower of Rassilon and thought this image of it was from the artist’s imagination. It reminded her of the works of Hieronymus Bosch, layering shapes of fear and death over the bleak landscape and lonely tower.

“Where did you get that book?” Standing behind her, the Doctor added his shadow to the page.

“Senfadrell sent it to me, ‘in appreciation for my artistic input.’” Tegan smiled proudly at him.

“I always said you were a quite a good artist, really.” The Doctor exuded innocence, assisted by the sunshine haloing his head from behind.

“Oh, don’t remind me of that lunch. No, I know you meant well. I’m still not sure about Lady Flavia.”

“I’m sure she meant well. I don’t think she meant it nicely.” He sat down beside her. “What did you want to see me about, Tegan? Your note made it sound rather important.”

“Two things. Professor Omicron suggested you could teach me some mental self-defense. Isn’t it high time I learned some, if there’s such a thing?”

Was it her imagination or did the Doctor’s gaze drift to her neck, securely cowled in the high sweater neck?

“I can teach you some techniques. You’ll find it very hard work, though. It’s a drain on the body. You’ll need to get plenty of rest and be sure to eat properly.” He frowned a little and ran his fingers over the book, leafing through the projected images. “Why did you go to Professor Omicron instead of me?”

“It came up as part of another conversation. I’m not sure I’d trust anyone else but you to teach me. Scratch that, I know I wouldn’t.” Tegan shuddered. “I’ve had too many problems like that, and knowing that most of the people on this planet have some sort of mental powers, I feel uneasy.”

“On Gallifrey, it’s considered a serious crime to violate a person’s mental integrity. Unfortunately, Gallifrey has not quite evolved beyond crime. I will make time for this, Tegan. An hour a day should be all you can stand at first. What else did you talk about with Professor Omicron?”

“I like talking with him. He tells me a lot of interesting things, like about the Pythia and Lady Thalia’s necklace. She thinks you’re a dangerous idealist, you know.”

“Yes, I know, and that wasn’t really an answer, Tegan. I thought you trusted me now. You must, if I am to teach you mental defense. You will have to make yourself completely vulnerable to me.” The Doctor laid his hand over hers.

“I do trust you, Doctor. Do you trust me? I’ll tell you this much. I quarreled with Keludar, and I had a question for the Professor about the Academy, since he spends a lot of time down there. Turlough knows. I’d tell you, but then I’d be telling the President, too.” Tegan tried to look like a person who knew what she was doing.

The Doctor sighed. “Very well. Since you’re calm and rested, and I have time, we may as well begin your lessons. Come inside,” he said, standing up and offering his hand. Tegan tucked the art book under one arm, then accepted his hand and stood. He led her not to her apartment, but to his.

In a sitting room that was just on the other side of the garden door, were two semi-circular sofas placed around a beam of golden light. It shone down on a domed garden of tiny plants and insects, a vivarium. While she admired this living jewel, the Doctor took her wrap and the book and put them aside. Then he sat down with her on one of the sofas. He reached out and cupped her cheek, his fingers barely touching her skin.

“I should have done this before,” he said regretfully. “You have been much too often abused in this way.”

“I wouldn’t let you, before.” Tegan shrugged. “Too damn stubborn for my own good. How does this work?” She raised a hand, fingertips brushing her collar, and then put it down in her lap.

“Your mind is like a TARDIS, with many rooms. I want you to imagine a door for me, a door that you think of as one you can open and close, one that you can lock and bolt if need be. Hold the image in your mind, and then open the door for me. I will not enter until you let me in.”

“And what’s behind the door? That matters, doesn’t it?”

“Your immediate thoughts, the ones you turn into words. The Tegan you show the world. Nothing truly private. Anything private goes behind inner doors that you close against me. Do you trust me not to go where I am not invited?”

“I should say you spend most of your time ending up in places you shouldn’t be, Doc. But I’ll trust you for this.”

“Don’t talk now. Think of the door, your front door. When you open this door, you are inviting me into your home. I am your guest, and I will only go where you give me leave.”

Tegan’s eyes closed. She had a sense of him, waiting patiently while she struggled to hang onto images and ideas.

“What kind of door would it take to make you feel safe, Tegan?”

The image flashed into her mind: thick planks bound with iron, a bar and a huge padlock. The view spread before her mind’s eye of a battle scarred fortress. Its stones looked barely more worked than the stone of the hill it stood on. Primitive, a place of violence and bloodshed, as much a prison as a refuge. She cried out and opened her eyes. The Doctor stroked her hair and she leaned a little into the soothing touch.

“Ah, Tegan. You’ve been besieged. My rescue arrives a little late, it seems. Will you open the gates for me? I come in peace.” Her eyes stared into his unseeingly, but his voice reached past her walls and the fortress yielded. Cool clean wind and bright sunlight entered the keep without judgment. The defenders lowered their weapons. The battle was done, and they could rest.

 

When Tegan awoke, she was in the stadium like Presidential bed. She was still tired, but her stomach was growling. The Doctor was nowhere to be seen, but he’d left a tray with food pills and a flask of juice on a bedside table. Food pills were handy, there was no doubt about that; Tegan had never felt healthier. Right now, though, she craved something she could sink her teeth into. She didn’t have a headache, but her head felt uncomfortably light like her skull had been scoured from the inside. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and washed the pills down with juice.

Now that she was at least three quarters alive, she headed towards the nearest lit room, tugging at her sweater dress. She didn’t like sleeping in her clothes; they never fit quite the same when she woke up in them.

“Doctor?” she asked, putting up her hand against the light. Like an angel in his white and gold robe, the Doctor walked out of the light into the range of her bleary vision.

“Did you eat and drink, Tegan?” He leaned close and looked into her face, a welcome shadow.

“Yes, Doctor.” She arched her back and rolled her shoulders, trying to work out the stiffness. There were other people in the room. Tegan blinked her eyes a few times and recognized the impressive silhouette of Commandant Maxil. There was something innately memorable about his combination of blond curls and supercilious expression. She shivered.

“Go to your room and have a long hot soak. That will make you feel better. Do you need me to walk you back?”

Tegan’s gaze crossed Maxil’s. His eyes took her in with clinical efficiency. For some reason she felt shocked into alertness. “I’m fine, Doctor.”

“Very well. Take care of yourself, you’re more depleted than you realize. We’ll talk tomorrow, when you’re fully rested.”

“I’ll be sleeping in,” Tegan said, with a touch of her usual humor. She walked back into the darkness of the apartment. The light beam led her to her book and jacket, and out to the garden she went. She barely waited to get in her own door before she started stripping off her clothes on her way to the hygiene chamber.

 

After a couple more days of waking up dog tired, Tegan had to ask at the start of the lesson, “Is it always going to be so exhausting? And why do we have to do it in your apartment?”

They were in the sitting room again. The Doctor sat not quite opposite her, so that the light beam didn’t block their view of each other. “Mental aptitude is not easily quantified, Tegan. The higher expressions of psychic ability may seem superhuman to you, but they are all sourced in the sentient mind. Gallifreyans have the advantage of evolution, of genetic modification, and of training regimens developed over millennia of study. Even so, some Gallifreyans are more talented in this area than others. It is more an art than a science, and you are a talented artist.”

Tegan looked at him for a moment. “Is it always going to be so exhausting? And why do we have to do it in your apartment?”

The Doctor chuckled. “Sorry, I did get off the point. Consider it foundation for my explanation. You created an image of your mind for us both to work with, a personal metaphor. That visualization was strengthened by your artistic ability.” His smile faded. “You started building that fortress long ago, Tegan. It is not merely something that came about because of the Mara or the Master or the Eternals. Gallifrey rigidly nurtures her young. We are all given the same building material with which to construct our psyches. Yours is made from the random influences of your life, and apparently, you feel embattled. It fits with my experience of you that you are quick to defend yourself, and willing to attack those who threaten you. You are finally letting yourself rest from a long battle. Your body reflects the weariness of your mind. While you are in such states, I wish to be close by to protect you.”

“Why wouldn’t I be safe in my room?”

“This state of psychological vulnerability is similar to that which you were in when you encountered the Mara. Even the subconscious knowledge that I am nearby will create a simple barrier. Your mind will not need to create random thoughtforms for protection.”

“All right, but cover me up with something when I pass out. Your apartment is colder than mine.”

“I’ll raise the temperature. The added comfort will be psychologically beneficial.”

“Doctor? I hate asking you to do this for me when I don’t do anything for you. If it’s taking away from your work—“

“We’re not stopping now, Tegan. But since you mention it, there is something you can do for me.”

 

They had Lady Flavia to lunch again. Lunch seemed to be her preferred meal to take in company. This time, Tegan faced the Doctor and Turlough faced Flavia. The Lady Tegan was now the Lord President’s official hostess. On being informed, Turlough had felt called upon to greet the news with unnecessary questions (or so Tegan felt.)

_“Weren’t you always?” (glare at Turlough)_

_“At last you can put all that rigorous training to use.” (threaten to thump Turlough)_

_“Is there a Presidential drinks trolley?” (chase Turlough around the garden and fling snowballs at him)_

At last, when she’d sat on Turlough and told him she’d stuff snow down the back of his trousers if he didn’t give in, the Doctor walked over and tipped a tree branch laden with snow on the both of them. It’s good to be the President.

Lady Flavia was staring at Turlough, her eyebrows delicately arched in concern. “You look fevered, young man. How do you feel?”

“Just a little exercise in the snow,” Turlough said, putting a hand up to his red nose.

“The… the snow? You’ve been Outside just now?” She sounded taken aback.

“The Presidential Garden, Lady Flavia. There’s a beautiful view of the mountains,” Tegan said, smiling across the table at the Doctor. He’d added lessons in Gallifreyan etiquette to the ones in mental defense, so lunch with Flavia was like a quiz after a week’s instruction.

“Oh, yes, the Gardens. There’s one off the Chancellery wing as well. Were you planning on including trips to the Outside in this new social schedule, Doctor?”

“It hasn’t been raised, Flavia. I think as we encourage a more active community spirit that we’ll have need for a wider variety of activities, which could include going Outside.”

“The Gardens are force screened, after all. It’s not like really going Outside,” Turlough pointed out.

“Back home we call doing new things broadening your horizons. It’s a mental journey as well as a physical one. I understand that better all the time.”

The Doctor smiled across the table at Tegan.

“I know there are hydroponics farms somewhere in the Citadel. Who’s in charge of running them?” Turlough asked Flavia. “Food pills are admirably efficient, but are aesthetically unsatisfying.”

“You’ve been talking to Senfadrell. Total habitat design is his mania, as if we were all zoological specimens.” Flavia sipped her juice. “All nutritional delivery is handled out of the Castellan’s office, under Lord Martusan.”

Oh, him. The cerub nut. “I danced with him at Otherstide. He seemed very, ummm,” Tegan faltered as she noticed the Doctor was raising an eyebrow at her, “comfortable talking to an alien.”

Turlough looked from Tegan to the Doctor and inquired, “Was he a good dancer?”

“He said it was his first time, but if so he had a talent for dancing.”

“Perhaps it was due to his partner,” Turlough suggested, unaware of his upcoming rendezvous with a face full of snow.

It was Lady Flavia’s turn to raise an eyebrow.


	19. Chapter 19

Lord Martusan claimed to be pleased to show Tegan, and Turlough, around the hydroponics installations deep under the Citadel. He didn’t touch Tegan or speak to her other than politely. On the other hand, she was sure she wasn't merely imagining that his attention was mainly on her. He certainly noticed her sheer black stockings, which actually pleased her as acquiring them had taken an hour’s struggle with her much put upon wardrobe. She needed them to go with her black and red plaid narrow skirt and bright cherry red raglan sweater. These were an excuse to wear the red ankle boots. 

 

Turlough had been interested in visiting the hydroponics facility until he heard about its location in the cavernous chambers deep below the Citadel. Tegan had wanted to learn more about Gallifreyan food, and the Doctor had insisted that Turlough accompany her. Now that she was down in these catacombs, she was glad of his chaperonage.

Most of the units were enclosed in opaque white material that concentrated the light used to grow the plants. The effect was like walking among captive moons. The light was diffuse, and there were plenty of deep shadows. Not all the plants grew under full light, and there were open gardens of night blooming plants.

“All growth intended to serve as food is in sealed chambers,” Martusan said at her ear. “These plants have been bred for ornamental placement, and are hypoallergenic.”

“Do you work with the force-screened gardens?” Tegan asked, circling to the other side of the planter.

“Yes. The gardens at the base of the Citadel preserve old genetic lines of plants, as a base stock for our reference and for historical value. Some are full biospheres, maintaining animal life that would otherwise go extinct, having lost their natural habitat.”

“What about that continent, the one that’s gone back to nature?” Turlough asked.

“I would term it an uncontrolled ecological experiment. What’s the point of letting depleted biodiversity run wild? Scientifically, it’s completely invalid. Are you interested in visiting? It’s not under my office: I work with the Citadel and the territory immediately surrounding it.”

“What’s that device over there? It looks like a huge retort.”

“It’s an evaporation distillery. There’s a sample valve on the far side, if you wish to indulge your curiosity.” Turlough surged ahead, and Martusan said to Tegan, “You may be interested in the contents of this vat. If you would put your hand in? It’s nothing distasteful, I assure you.”

Tegan slipped her hand under the lid into something sleek and velvety and warm. “It feels furry, but it can’t be an animal, can it?” She wriggled her fingers; they felt like they were caressing a mink coat.

“It’s artificial fur growth medium. The fibers are harvested and used in various textiles. It’s popular for bedding and upholstery. I think your skin must feel that soft and warm.” 

Tegan pulled her hand free to find she’d let Martusan corner her. She couldn’t leave without brushing up against him. But as he didn’t come closer, she held still.

“Listen to me for but a moment. A Time Lord has keen senses, but we do not experience the input of our senses as viscerally as you. Can you imagine what that fur would feel like against your bare skin? I have a bed cover made of it. It’s most relaxing.”

“Good for you. I think I’ll pass,” Tegan said tightly, and radiated displeasure. She felt like a hedgehog, bristling with spikes.

Martusan smiled. “I’ve visited your planet. I have observed that humans don’t merely value touch, they need it, and they crave it. Somehow, I don’t think the Lord President has succeeded in turning you into a Gallifreyan. For one thing, I’m sure he does not want that.”

He turned aside as Turlough came back. “It’s still a bit raw at this stage, but the bouquet is delightful. The scent of the flowers is used for personal grooming.” Martusan turned back and inclined his head towards Tegan, briefly sniffing her hair. “I see you’ve tried it. It’s popular with women.”

Tegan glared at him. Martusan hadn’t actually propositioned her, but she knew he was attempting a seduction. He smiled imperturbably and walked ahead to the next section of vats. Turlough whispered, “Did he try something?”

“No,” she hissed at him. Turlough shrugged in response. Tegan decided she really hated men, and a convent wasn’t what she needed, but a tribe of Amazon warriors. Her veins bubbled with frustration and she was in a foul mood for the rest of the trip. Turlough had to fill her sullen silences. Martusan didn’t seem to notice.

 

Tegan tried to calm herself. She was supposed to meet Leela, Andred, and the Doctor to attend a musical performance, and Leela for one wouldn’t miss her agitation. She didn’t want to feel how she felt, let alone explain this hypersensitivity to every fleeting touch.

A hand reached out and dragged her into a side passage. A voice said, “Shhh!” Tegan gasped, struggled, and found herself released and facing the Professor.

“You scared the crap out…” she lowered her voice at the frantic wave of his hands. “Me. Don’t _do_ that.”

“I am sorry to be so abrupt, but I thought I should let you know that Keludar is up to something. He hasn’t attended class since Otherstide, but I saw him deep in the library, practicing with a toog stick.”

Tegan knew what those were. The Shobogans used them in martial arts practice. They were slightly pointed at one end and crooked at the other. “Maybe he’s planning to go Outside? He said they’d never make him a Time Lord, because he’s so closely related to the Master.”

“Yes, Koschei, that proud, foolish boy. Keludar is like him in that. He wouldn’t give me an answer, but laughed it off. You know his way. He said he expected to have to fight for what he wanted, but a toog stick won’t get him the Rassilon Imprimatur, or… you.”

“You got that right. I don’t believe he’d threaten me with violence. He’s too proud to stoop to that, or he’d… well, he wouldn’t.” An inner calm descended with that certainty. “I’d better go, Professor, I’m going to be late.”

“I’m coming with you.” He stood straight and squared his shoulders. The stern expression on Professor Omicron’s face reminded Tegan that he was a ten thousand year old Time Lord and not to be talked out of his decisions by a human of but twenty-four.

“In public?”

“Everyone thinks I’m dead,” he reminded her.

“Seeing is believing, Professor,” she countered, but when he offered his arm she took it.

“I’m not letting you walk alone. It’s not merely for your sake. I hate to see that boy ruin himself.” Professor Omicron shook his head disapprovingly.

“Is he much like the Ma… like Koschei?”

“Koschei was more vain. Keludar’s got a solid streak in him that has kept him grounded. He was one of the more promising students at the Academy, a protégé of the President. It only counts against him now.”

“It’s not fair,” she said wistfully. Tegan understood anger, and bearing a grudge against fate.

“It takes a sentient mind to make justice and beauty and mercy out of the unfeeling Universe. That these ideas exist is a lasting wonder to me.”

They encountered few people, but those that did stared. “Professor, if everyone thinks you’re dead, how come they’re staring like they recognize you?”

“Not me, but the stole. It’s only worn by Time Lords who reach their tenth millennia.”

“And how many of those are there?”

“Including me? Two. Lord Azhangrell hasn’t come out of his room in three centuries. He can’t get through the door. All he does is eat.”

“For three centuries?” Tegan felt a little queasy.

“Unless he’s faking it, like I am.” He hmmed meditatively. “I don’t think that’s so. I really don’t wish to go looking in on him, so who knows?”

The corridor opened up into one of the big public spaces. The performer was popular, and the crowd was to be expected. There were an unusual number of Time Lords present, and a dozen assorted Guards. The President could go out in public, but not without his security forces.

“Keludar will have to deal with his lot in life as best he may. As must we all. There’s your President. Go along now, my dear, enjoy yourself. No one will notice me with you wearing such a bright red.” 

As the Professor walked away, a Guard came up to her. “The President is waiting for you, my lady.”

She noticed him watching the Professor, and tapped him on the arm. “Lead me over,” Tegan commanded. He was obliged to escort her and by the time he was free the Professor would be long gone.

 

Tegan dropped into the seat by the Doctor and crossed her legs. “So did you see him?”

“As large as life and twice as old. What in Rassilon’s name is going on?” the Doctor asked plaintively. “I’m the President. You’re supposed to tell me.”

“I’ll explain later,” said Tegan.

Leela was staring at her boots as if hypnotized. “They are very red. Do you wear black and red to bring you luck in the hunt? That is superstition.”

“It’s just that the red is redder against the black.” Tegan extended her black-stockinged leg and made a circle with her toe in the crimson boot.

The music began without ceremony, as by custom the performer was held to be simply sitting down and casually playing music. If other people gathered to listen, that was their business. His instrument was a harp that had both physical strings and beams of light, like a theremin. The bright, unhurried notes formed patterns that were too complex for her to grasp, but the shape of the patterns pleased her ears.

The Doctor put his hand on hers and tapped to get Tegan’s attention. She tilted her head to his and heard him whisper, “I asked him to play this next piece for you. It’s an arrangement of the Spiral Symphony.”

She nodded and gave the next piece her complete attention. The musician’s hands seemed to hardly move at first. Single notes floated on the air like motes of dust in a sunbeam. The scale was slightly jarring to ears accustomed to human modes of music, but she found that the disharmonies resolved in sequential notes instead of chords. It was a game to follow them through the music, like trying to catch snowflakes on one’s tongue.

In the last movement, he kept striking the deepest notes so powerfully that Tegan could taste the sound as it vibrated in the soft tissues of her throat. The conclusion of the music was met with soft Gallifreyan applause in a lasting susurrus. They applauded with one palm cupped against the other palm flat, with more of a puffing sound than a slap.

“The last part represents the collision of the Andromeda Galaxy with Mutter’s Spiral,” the Doctor told her.

“What, whole galaxies of stars? Crashing into each other?”

“Oh, yes. It’s inevitable, but it won’t happen for millions of years.”

“I’ll just enjoy the music, then, and not wait for the real thing,” Tegan joked. 

Once the concert was over, the performer started putting his instrument away. People drifted up to him, exchanged a few words, and then moved on in an elaborate dance of nonchalance. Tegan found it rather confusing that they should be so insistent on ceremony in some areas and determinedly unceremonious in others. Either way a strict standard of behavior was expected. The Lord President’s group received no notable preference. The Doctor enjoyed it all immensely.

So did Tegan, until she spotted Keludar. He waited until their gazes met, tilted his head to one side, then lost himself in the crowd. She excused herself from the party and went in the direction indicated. He waited for her to catch sight of him again before ducking into a privacy cubicle, which in the social sense was effective invisibility. Tegan was not surprised when the door opened to her touch. She stepped in and let it close behind her.

“I am sorry,” Keludar said without preamble. “And I am ashamed of having acted so oafishly.” His lips curved into the smile that had drawn her from the start, the one that made his eyes sparkle with life. “I’m still not sorry I kissed you. I don’t think I’m capable of regretting that.”

Tegan stared at his arm. The sleeve of his robe was lumpy. “You’ve got a toog stick hidden up there, don’t you? What the hell do you think you’re going to do with it?”

“Fight for my life,” he said simply.

“Talk sense, why don’t you? Kel, maybe you can’t force them to make you a Time Lord, but I don’t believe for a minute that you can’t make what you want of your life.”

“Ah, Tegan. You never fail to astound me. Is that what friendship is, to speak to me like that even after I’ve wronged you?”

He had turned quiet and serious, with some odd edge to his presence Tegan didn’t understand. “I guess it is, at that. I care about what happens to you.”

“Thank you. I never guessed such selfless loyalty existed before I met you. You deserve as much in return. I hope you shall receive it.”

“Back home we’d call it common decency, not that it’s so common.” Tegan put her hand on the door handle. “Go back to the Academy, Kel. Think about your options.”

Keludar ran his hand through his hair, rumpling it. He was unlike his usual well-groomed self tonight in a generic Patrexean mauve robe. “There’s one only you can help me with. I’d like to appeal to the President. Will you take me to him, now, while my nerve lasts? I don’t wish you to plead for me, but only to be there.”

Tegan stared at him. “Keludar,” she said unhappily, “you’re not planning anything rash, are you?”

He smiled at her. “Perhaps, but nor am I an assassin. Here, take this, if it will ease your mind. You can surrender it to the President in token of my honorable intentions.” With a little twist of his arm, he made the toog stick pop out of his sleeve. It looked harmless, being not much longer than a man’s forearm. The pointed end was hardly pointed at all.

“Very well,” Tegan said, accepting the stick. “Let’s go.” She opened the door, ignoring the appalled expressions of the Gallifreyans who were seeing two people come out of the same privacy cubicle.

A guard waved a hand at her, but she couldn’t hear him over the sudden rise of crowd noise. She waved back, assuming he was trying to tell her the President was looking for her. Here came the Doctor now, with Leela and Andred behind him.

“There you are, Tegan,” the Doctor said, frowning slightly as he noticed Keludar behind her. “We’re ready to go now, or did you want to stay?”

Tegan held out the toog stick to him. “Doctor,” she began to say. Keludar interrupted her.

“Doctor, I challenge you! I call you to account for the wrongs you have done this alien woman. You have stolen her from her world and made her the object of scorn and ridicule for your own benefit. Relinquish Tegan Jovanka to her own place and time, or overcome my challenge and prove me wrong. Will you contest these truths here and now, before these witnesses?”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one talks about the Gallifreyan Fight Club.

Keludar produced a second toog stick from up his sleeve. The Doctor pulled the first one from Tegan’s limp grasp.

“I don’t believe you’re doing this,” Tegan said, speaking to both of them. She had a lot more to say, too, but Leela pulled her back.

“Take hold of yourself,” Leela whispered. “Keludar has the right to seek justice from his chief.”

The Doctor and Keludar were stripping off their robes. It served as an equalizer, for the plain trousers and shirts that they were left in were identical save for color. In grey, Keludar looked like the down on his luck younger brother of the Doctor in immaculate white.

“He doesn’t have the right to trick me into helping him,” Tegan said angrily.

Keludar called out, “That I could do so supports my thesis. The Doctor has placed his whim above law, and you have suffered for it.”

Tegan drew breath to give him a piece of her mind, red hot from the furnace.

“Tegan, don’t say anything,” Doctor said. His brusque voice matched his stern face.

“Tegan, speak! Do you let him command you?” Keludar parried.

Tegan, her lips trembling with the press of words on her tongue, looked at the Doctor, and kept silent. Leela stirred, responding to something happening behind them. The cold presence of Commandant Maxil appeared to Tegan’s left. A pair of guards followed him.

“Arrest him,” he said, nodding to Keludar.

The guards moved forward.

“No,” the Doctor said. His voice held all the authority of the Lord President, and more than that, he was the Doctor, who had faced more danger than ever had any of his security guards. They froze in their tracks.

Maxil stood so close to her that his white cloak occasionally brushed Tegan’s arm. He at least was not cowed. “Your Excellency, this ancient custom cannot prevail over the safety of the President.”

“Keludar, are you planning to kill me?”

“Lord President, that would be against the laws of Gallifrey. If willingness to break the law is considered, it is I who more needs to fear for his life. My only life, at that.”

“You see? I am in no danger, Commandant. You need not fear for my life,” the Doctor said, calmly running his hands over the toog stick to test its condition.

“It’s fortunate we have a witness of such well known probity. He can enforce the terms of the challenge. Commandant, on my victory, you should see that this alien is returned to her world.”

Maxil glanced down at Tegan. “That can be arranged with dispatch,” he noted, and took her by the arm. Tegan longed to try and shake him off, but Leela was with her, tensed to act. Anything she did would commit them both. She gave Maxil her most poisonous glare, to which he was sadly immune.

“I’ve no doubt the Commandant will follow the correct protocol.” The Doctor sounded like he was barely in control of himself. Fury whetted his voice. “Reinsertion at point of departure, complete with a mind wipe of anomalous memories to eliminate possible contamination to the time line. All done in the best interest of the primitive in question, of course.”

Tegan swayed in place. That was almost a death sentence. To lose all her adventures would kill the Tegan she’d become. They would take her mind apart and rebuild it as they chose from the rubble. Leela put an arm around her shoulders. “Do not fear. The Doctor will not lose.” Her voice was soft, but Tegan heard her easily as the crowd had gone deathly still. Glancing around, she saw many faces shocked blank; few could meet her eyes.

“I’m glad the law considers her best interest significant. Isn’t that what the laws are for, to protect the weak from the predation of the strong?” Keludar raised his toog stick to a ready position. A murmur swept through the watchers.

Tegan stared at Keludar in horror. She started to speak again, and Leela poked her sharply before she could get a word out.

“Clear the space for them,” Maxil commanded. People drew back leaving the Doctor and Keludar in an empty circle. A guard picked up their discarded robes. “Are those the full terms?”

“You are the challenger, Keludar. I did not seek this fight. What if you lose?” The Doctor loosened his shoulders, and assumed his own ready stance.

“I shall live with the consequences of my actions, come what may,” Keludar said lightly. Where the Doctor was grim, he was smiling. “The worst burden will be a reputation for radical melodrama. Everyone will expect me to entertain them. I shall envy Tegan after a while. She won’t remember a thing.”

The Doctor took one swift step forward, then contained himself. Keludar’s smile broadened. He’d never reminded Tegan more strongly of the Master.

“Let the challenge commence,” Maxil’s voice stilled the crowd. The opponents moved together with a chock of wood on wood. Gallifrey should have evolved beyond the code duello. They were fighting for the integrity of her mind with a couple of sticks, and she was given no option but to stand and watch.

Tegan had seen the Shobogans working out. The toog stick was not an impressive sight. Its small size and blunt ends emphasized that the real weapon was the mind of the wielder. Leela’s confidence in the Doctor was justified. He’d taken part in more conflicts than anyone on this planet. Keludar had never left the Citadel in his life. The Doctor had outwitted entities of incredible power and intellect. Keludar exercised his wits on the senior class of the Academy, the faculty, and Tegan. 

On the other hand, the Doctor was furious, and Keludar seemed determined to keep goading him. The Doctor scored a solid blow on Keludar’s shoulder. He counter-attacked with words. “What are you fighting for, anyway? I know you haven’t kissed her.” They closed with each other. Keludar said something that was inaudible to Tegan but made the Doctor flinch. Keludar jabbed in hard with the straight end of the toog, and the Doctor grunted in pain.

Tegan could not imagine what she would be without the memory of her adventures, but she knew all about public humiliation. She could not reconcile the Keludar who had shown real contrition with the one who mocked the most intimate feelings of the three of them. Leela’s steady presence at her side was all that allowed her to watch this without screaming.

Thankfully, most of their conversations stayed inaudible. Toog stick fighting was a close-up style. The Doctor sounded more like he was growling. Keludar bound up the Doctor’s toog, and finessed the block into a shot to the Doctor’s jaw. A trace of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. He twisted and landed his elbow in a blow that sent Keludar staggering back, scrabbling to keep hold of his toog.

Undaunted, Keludar inquired, “Seriously, you’ve traveled with her for years and you don’t even know what she looks like freshly kissed?” The entire crowd could hear him. Everyone on Gallifrey must have heard him, including Rassilon. Forced amnesia lost some of its horror for Tegan.

The Doctor glanced at her briefly before advancing on Keludar. “It seems consistent with the laws you claim to be defending to deal fairly with my companions and respect their pride and independence. Unlike you, I don’t deal in seduction.”

They met again. The Doctor neatly snagged Keludar’s toog, sent it flying, then swung the hook end around and knocked him off his feet. A moment later, Keludar was flat on his back. The Doctor moved a step away. “Confine him,” he said curtly.

He came over and handed Maxil the toog stick. They shared an icy glance, then the Doctor physically removed Maxil’s hand from Tegan’s arm and substituted his own. He marched Tegan off. She barely had a chance to murmur, “Thanks,” to Leela. Maxil ordered two guards to escort them back to the Presidential apartments. Their presence effectively locked Tegan’s tongue, and the Doctor didn’t say a word.

 

The Doctor opened the door to his apartment, and handed Tegan through the door. He told the guard, “No visitors, and no messages.” The door closed, and they were alone together.

“I’m sorry I’ve made a botch of things as usual. I should have handled Keludar better. Maybe I should have slept with him and he’d have gone off with his curiosity satisfied.” Tegan couldn’t look at the Doctor.

“There are those whose curiosity is impossible to satiate.”

There was humor in his voice. Startled, she met his eyes. “I thought you were angry.”

“I’m not angry at you. I would never have let them take your memories. You know that, don’t you, Tegan? No matter what.”

“Lady Flavia said that I should stay out of politics as much as possible. I’ve made things harder for you, haven’t I?”

“I wanted my friends with me, Tegan, because I would have missed you and Turlough. I value my friends because they are my friends. There need be no other reason.”

“I thought Keludar was my friend. Maybe I fooled myself. How could it come to that on a world like this? Fighting with sticks over a woman?” She shook her head, feeling hysteria bubble up. The reaction was setting in.

The Doctor put his hands on her shoulders. “I could have just told the guards to throw him in a cell, but Tegan, once he raised the issue, I had to be careful how I handled it. Toog stick fighting is a form of debate. If I ended the fight with a dictatorial fiat, then that would be taken as the way I am ready to solve other conflicts.” He squeezed her shoulders. “It was more difficult to refuse because Keludar tricked you into offering me the toog stick. That signified that you held him as your champion.”

“There’s still blood on your face. Are you bleeding anywhere else? Shouldn’t you see a physician?” Tegan pulled back from his hands and started tugging his shirt up.

“I cut the inside of my cheek on my teeth, that’s all. There’s already one Presidential Doctor… ow! Tegan!”

“Stop fussing and take your shirt off.” Tegan didn’t wait for him to do it; she unfastened the shirt at his shoulder and started helping him get it off, while he made various pain noises. His torso showed the red blotches of new bruising. “Do you think you have any cracked or broken ribs?”

The Doctor took a deep breath, a slow rise and fall of his chest. “Cracked, perhaps, but definitely not broken. Tegan, you care about Keludar, don’t you? You… like him.”

“Not at the moment, no!” Tegan planned to blame her blush on anger at Keludar, if the question arose.

“Tegan, you know what I mean.” The Doctor rubbed the dried blood from the corner of his mouth, looking weary. “He wasn’t trying to get you sent home. He knew he’d lose the fight. Keludar accomplished his aim right from the start when he forced the issue into the open.”

“What issue? That talking monkeys shouldn’t be allowed on Gallifrey?” Tegan paced agitatedly. “I thought he and I understood each other. I feel so… alien. No wonder you and I argue so much.”

“I thought we’d been getting on rather well lately. I meant what I said about the value of your friendship, Tegan. I’ve lived away from Gallifrey longer than I’ve lived on Gallifrey. You and Turlough remind me of the life I’d rather be having, and you make this life better as well. The law about not bringing aliens to Gallifrey has nothing to do with passport regulations, but with the Laws of Time that forbid us from interfering in the affairs of other worlds. Laws, which you know full well I’ve circumvented many times in the past, because I believe that our people are too rigid in their thinking.”

“You sound just like Professor Omicron.”

“You haven’t been kissing him, have you?”

“Doctor! I’d slap you if someone hadn’t beaten me to it. I am not … promiscuous!” Tegan put her hands on her hips and glared at the Doctor.

He put a hand up in appeasement. “I know it well. I’m sorry, my humor was poorly timed.”

“All right, then. So, Keludar made a public challenge to highlight the way Gallifreyans tend to see less advanced races as being semi-housebroken pets? Why make it to you? You’re not like that… oh.”

“Which he made sure I demonstrated publicly.” The Doctor smiled ruefully.

Tegan’s heart eased. “So he does like me, even if he has a weird way of showing it, because he’s an alien.”

“Yes, we have a lot in common,” the Doctor said exasperatedly. He captured her hand to draw her attention. “Tegan, unless you’ve some objection, I should quite like to kiss you. Now.”

He gently tugged her one step closer, and took one step to meet her so that they nearly touched. She was facing his bruised chest, and noticed that he was breathing faster, whereas she felt quite breathless. The Doctor’s fingers cupped her chin and lifted her face. His eyes searched hers as he bent his neck. They closed by increments. He did not ask permission, but led her as in their dancing, timing his advance to her response.

At the last gap, their noses brushing, Tegan gently skimmed her fingertips along his bruised jaw and into the fine, blond hair around his ear. Their eyes held. She tilted her head a crucial fraction of an angle and let their lips touch like bumping clouds, air soft and full of electricity. Lips clung, pressed closer in tentative exploration. When the kiss broke, she found him looking down into her face. He smiled; she smiled. No words were needed. The kiss resumed and became more fervent.

His hands moved, gently urging her into closer contact. She rested her hands on his shoulders. His bare skin warmed under her fingertips even as her breath warmed his mouth. He made no sound, but she felt him wince, though the pressure of his hands holding her close did not yield. She broke the kiss.

“We should do something about those bruises, Doctor.” She touched his side, as softly as she could, but he winced again.

“I am,” he mumbled, leaving a line of kisses across her cheek as she turned her head. He kissed the pulse point below the corner of her jaw and she caught her breath. “I hardly notice them at all right now.” He nuzzled her neck.

The ends of his hair tickled her nose. She said quietly, as his ear was conveniently close, “It’s distracting if you wince in pain when I’m kissing you.”

His sigh raised shivers from her skin. He raised his head enough to let him rest his forehead on hers. “I don’t know how long I’ve wanted to kiss you, but I’d rather not stop.”

“What? How can you not know? Is this some emotional detachment issue?” Tegan was tempted not to ask questions, to let it happen, to be kissed, to be taken to his bed. The stubborn, self-protective part of her kept flinging up barriers. He knew her well, and he was not an ignorant, inexperienced boy like Keludar. He could sweep her away if she let him, away from herself.

“Yes. You know by now that Gallifreyans, even Time Lords, are not immune to desire. I always thought you were attractive, and I never thought to do anything about it. I wanted you to trust me and be my friend, not be seduced into sharing my life. I had to keep my head clear. Time travel does not mix well with passion. There are hard choices to be made.”

“So what changed?”

“Living here again makes me realize how much I’ve changed. I don’t wish to be ruled by my emotions, but it’s not such a bad thing to be guided by them.”

Tegan watched the Doctor’s mouth as he spoke. She’d never before allowed herself to study the shape of his lips, to think about their silken articulation. Now she was in his arms, his bare skin was under her hands, and the taste of his mouth was in hers. Like a silent cry of longing, she lifted herself to kiss him.

There was nothing ethereal about the kiss now. A man was kissing a woman. When tongues tangle and speech is lost, that one party was a vagabond scientist turned planetary leader and the other a dogged feminist on a perpetual adventure holiday no longer mattered. The alien gulf was bridged by slick, mobile flesh and the exchange of chemical signatures. Carnal knowledge does not belong solely to genital organs.

The sharp intake of his breath did not spring from desire. Tegan instantly turned her face away. “I can’t do this while you’re in pain.” She glanced down at where her hand held his hip. “I bet there are other injuries you haven’t showed me.”

The caught-schoolboy expression on the Doctor’s face was charmingly ridiculous for a Time Lord of his years. “Er, nothing serious.”

“These hygiene chambers do first aid, right? Go clean up, get your injuries properly examined.”

He sighed and let go of her. “I suppose you’re right. And what will you do?”

“I’ll check my messages. I bet Turlough is worried.”

The Doctor nodded absently. He cupped her face with one hand and ran his thumb softly under her lower lip.

“He was right,” the Doctor said, and leaned in to kiss her with such heat and hunger that any other need was wiped from her thoughts. She didn’t remember her question until their bodies touched again.

“Who was right? No, it’s not important,” Tegan said, breaking away from his embrace. “Look after yourself.” She headed to the front of his apartment, then decided she’d be better off going to her apartment through the garden and reversed course. The Doctor hadn’t moved. He was watching her, a knowledge that inspired an extra sway in her hips. When she passed him, he followed her. 

The Doctor veered away towards the hygiene chamber, but when she got to the next door, he said from behind her, “Keludar.” When Tegan looked back, he’d gone into the chamber and closed the door behind him.

“Gallifreyans,” Tegan grumbled, and went on to her own apartment.


	21. Chapter 21

She had four messages: one from Turlough, one from Leela, and two from Environmental Services, or as she thought of it, ‘Housekeeping.’

Turlough: ‘Tegan, this is Turlough. I can’t reach the Doctor, and you’re probably with him, as you’re not accepting calls either. Please let me know if you’re both all right and if there’s anything I can do.’

Tegan tried contacting Turlough, and wasn’t surprised to find him out. She left him a reassuring message.

Leela: ‘If you need me, I will come to you.’

That was the whole message. Tegan’s eyes prickled with tears. If only there was something she could think of to do that would be some return for Leela’s friendship. Living on Gallifrey would have been far less pleasant without it.

The next message queued up. ‘A package has been delivered,’ was all it announced.

“What? Where is it?” The package had been delivered to the antechamber of her apartment. It was rather bulky, but not heavy. It took Tegan a couple of minutes to puzzle out how to open it. When packaging material sprang open she was ambushed by dark, warm fluffiness. It wasn’t, as she had first thought, an animal. Her arms instinctively pushed away, and the object flopped at her feet. Realizing it was inanimate, she picked it up again. It was larger than the package had suggested, and must have been somehow compressed inside.

It was the same furry material that she had felt in Martusan’s vat. There, in the dim lighting, she hadn’t seen more than a glossy darkness. She let the luxurious weight of it slide through her hands. As it spilled in a curve, its rich color fired under the light. The tip of each hair was red, the shaft deep brown fading to tawny gold at the base. Tegan coveted it more than any mink she’d seen on a movie star. She gathered it all up, finding it light for its size, and spread it on her bed.

Though she suspected Martusan’s motives, she couldn’t find it in herself to reject the gift. All right, she’d admit he possessed genuine sensuality. He simply wasn’t going to get the opportunity to exercise it with her.

Was that last message from him? She’d listen to it later. If she was going to keep his gift, she’d have to at least thank him. And then make it clear that she was…

Was what? Tegan was willing to bet that by now she’d seen a lot of Gallifreyan sexual practices, but nothing that gave her a clue about her and the Doctor. As usual, he wasn’t conforming to anyone’s rules. She spread the fur on the bed. It wasn’t quite large enough to cover the bed, but it made a fine-sized throw. She lay down on it and ran her fingers through the lush pelt that had never grown by an animal.

What did she want to make of those kisses? The angry Tegan, who had promised herself to be practical and realistic, who had sworn she would never take to her any man who did not see her as his equal, said it was only sex. Gallifreyans felt lust, and she was near, and to be frank, available. She’d be the lover to the President of Gallifrey, and one day return to Earth with the memories of exotic alien sex to warm her into old age.

Part of her, dancing, wanted to believe the Doctor could love her. That was a high-wire act, to balance on the edge of disaster. Even if she didn’t fall, one day she’d have to come down to earth; indeed, to Earth.

Her fingers kneaded the fur. There was not now and perhaps never had been any safe escape. Tegan had always known that the Doctor could break her heart. She’d kept herself proud, aloof and skeptical, playing the hardheaded one that the Universe had to work to impress. For all of his age and experience, the Doctor had kept one innocent quality. He loved to be amazed by the wonders he found in his travels. He’d rather be surprised that his expectations weren’t met than cynically expect the worst. It was simultaneously exasperating and endearing.

Oh, these Gallifreyan men. The sad thing was that she could understand Lord Martusan perfectly. He saw the unmet need in her, and offered to meet it. She could give her body to him and get release, and never ever risk her heart. She’d had that kind of sex before. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t do it again.

The Professor made a perfect unthreatening father figure. He saw her as young and fragile, to be protected from careless exploitation. Keludar was hungry, needing to be filled in ways she could not meet. It was not his likeness to the Master that repelled her, but to Marriner, the Eternal. Tegan knew too well that sex could never fill the void of un-love. Whatever he’d meant to do with his challenge, she hoped he’d finished with his obsession.

With the Doctor, she had betrayed herself and yielded a share of her heart. For a woman soured on romance, he was the perfect friend and an impossible standard by which to measure all other men. They had risked their lives for each other. He meant too much for Tegan to be casual. She avoided using him in her private fantasies, on those rare occasions when she couldn’t suppress her sexual needs.

That wouldn’t work any more. They had acknowledged desire. At this very moment, she could feel the echoes of his kiss. It would be easy to strip, wrap herself in this fur, and go offer herself unconditionally. Could she be brave enough to let her heart get broken? Was there a choice any more?

“Oh, hell. Too much thinking.”

 

Tegan lay staring up at the ceiling, cradled in softness. She could still taste the Doctor on her lips. If he hadn’t been in pain, how far would they have gone? Her fingers remembered solid flesh under cool Gallifreyan skin, and the thought of feeling him bare against all of her inspired a flare of heat. Her hands fisted in the fur. Where did good sense leave off and cowardice begin?

“Tegan?” He called from the other room; he must have come in from the garden.

“Doctor? I’m in here.” She sat upon the bed, and he appeared at the door of her bedroom, wearing a dressing gown over his white trousers. “What’s the diagnosis?”

“Some time in a healing trance is advised,” the Doctor said unenthusiastically. He hesitated on the threshold, then came towards the bed. “Where in Rassilon’s name did you find that fur?”

Tegan blushed despite herself. “It was delivered to my apartment with no name on the package. I assume it’s from Lord Martusan. He showed me something like it while he was giving us the tour of the hydroponics facility.”

“Showed you, and not Turlough?” The Doctor raised an inquiring eyebrow.

“He seems to fancy himself a ladies man.” Tegan surveyed him as he came up to the edge of the bed. “Are you jealous?” She did not ask archly, or angrily: she was almost afraid of the answer.

“The assumption that I have control over any aspect of your life is at the very least bad manners. That said: yes, I’m jealous. I don’t intend to let jealousy influence my actions. That is emotional detachment, Tegan, to have emotions yet not be motivated by them.” His expression had been stern, now he smiled again. “Unless I choose it. What did Martusan say to you, that he didn’t say to Turlough?”

Tegan regarded him warily. “He said that he had a fur like this on his bed, and that I should imagine what it felt like on bare skin. That he knew humans enjoyed touch.”

“All very true, and designed to make you think of what you don’t have: touch. I wonder where he got such knowledge. The image of you lying naked on that fur is stimulating. He sent you that fur so he could have that image in his head.”

She felt a rush of warmth throughout her body, hearing that familiar voice grow slightly hoarse and seeing the desire in his eyes. “Doctor, I don’t know you like this.” 

“May I sit down?” She nodded her permission, and he sat down on the edge of the bed more than an arm’s length away. “I’m centuries old, Tegan. It’s obvious there’s a lot you don’t know about me, but that’s not important. For the past few weeks I’ve been trying to be more intimate with you. I haven’t been planning your seduction. I want you to be happy on Gallifrey, and I want you to know that I care for you and respect you. We have both lived the lives given us. How can you be less for not being a Time Lord when that possibility did not exist for you? Why am I more because I had the opportunity?”

He reached out to her then, and not able to touch her, looked as though he regretted the choice of seat. Tegan put out her hand to meet his. “Life isn’t fair. It just isn’t.”

“No, it isn’t. The universe cannot create justice without minds to hold the concept. Tegan, don’t you see? I’ve always tried to make things more fair where I could. You have taught me that, you have all taught me that, the people I’ve traveled with. I would be less than I am without you.” His fingers tightened on hers, he spoke in a rush with the light of enthusiasm in his eyes.

Tegan smiled at him, her eyes misting. “That’s my Doctor.”

“My plan was for us to become better friends, nothing more. At Otherstide… “ He paused and shook his head. “I don’t know if you can understand how you looked in the eyes of Gallifreyans. We are born old. I didn’t learn what it meant to be young until I left Gallifrey. You were… new. Like a fresh snowfall, like the promise of spring after winter. At the same time, you were simply Tegan, a traveler from a primitive world, and you were there to dance. You embodied the moment as if we were all there only because you were there, as if Gallifrey had existed for millions of years so that you could be there to dance with me.”

She couldn’t say anything. He held her hand, but looked away from her, his face slightly flushed. “Then I had to let you go to dance with others. It is a minor consolation that I wasn’t the only man there making a cake of himself. Or woman.”

“So you’re saying I brought Gallifrey to its knees with the nape of my neck?”

He chuckled. “The rest of you played a part. Tegan, no one calculated that night. All that occurred was a spontaneous reaction to beauty, a fortunate coincidence of artist and audience. All you did was be yourself.”

“I can’t do anything else.” She’d meant to go on and say something typically flippant, but her throat tightened on the words.

The Doctor ran his thumb across the inside of her wrist. “Do you realize that when we touch like this, we’re exchanging energy? Chemical, kinetic, even psychic.”

“Psychic?” Tegan was skeptical.

“Oh, yes, in multiple layers. There’s the simple mental comprehension of contact, the subconscious awareness of body language, then the rarefied strata of the deep consciousness that registers the mingling of our auras.”

“You’re taking all the romance out of hand-holding, Doctor.”

His shoulders slumped. “Sorry, this doesn’t come easily to me.”

She tugged at his hand. “You were trying to be romantic?”

“Tegan, I’m having a very complex biochemical reaction to your presence, with some fascinating energetic phenomena. It seems appropriate to respond in the romantic mode to these sexual cues. Of course, you are not obligated to respond,” he explained scrupulously.

“You’re babbling, Doctor.” She squeezed his hand, then scooted closer. “I’m awful at romance. It’s okay to be awful at it.” He was looking at her sidelong with his blond fringe hanging in front of his eyes. She kicked off her boots, then tucked her stockinged feet under herself. “We had our romantic moment. I was afraid it didn’t mean to you what it meant to me. It was…” she had to take a deep breath to get the word out, “magical. But that doesn’t last.” She held their still joined hands up. “So tell me about the aura mingling.” Tegan rested her cheek against his shoulder.

The Doctor drew a deep breath. “If we were enemies, our auras would be shielded out of instinctive reaction. However, we are friends, and we have kissed. The mouth is a fount of vital energies. That previous contact amplifies the embrace of hands.” His words were scientific, but his voice was tender. 

Tegan untwined their fingers and fit her palm flat to his larger hand. “Our hands are kissing?”

“Yes.” He shifted slightly, and cool lips brushed her temple. She laughed and lifted her head, turning to meet his kiss with hers. Their fingers locked together again. The position was awkward. They turned, shifted together, until Tegan was lying back on the fur with the Doctor leaning over her.

He did not pin her. She rested in the curve of his arm. Through all this, their hands remained clasped. The contact felt as necessary as his mouth on hers. Her body lay relaxed and languid, confined by her clothing. The Doctor shifted, and then suddenly winced as the motion pained him. “No, no,” she murmured against his mouth, “You need that trance, not to make out.” She laughed a little, still finding the thought of the Doctor making out hard to believe.

The Doctor hovered above her, the blue of his eyes smoky under hooded lids. Then he sighed and rolled carefully to his back. “Desire is difficult to resist,” he rumbled, “when you let yourself feel it.”

Tegan sat up and leaned over him, planting a hand on the other side of his body. “Stay with me, here. Go into your trance, and I’ll sleep next to you.” She smoothed his hair back from his face, and it lay golden against the dark fur.

The Doctor’s mulish expression softened. “All right.”

Her heart thumped. This world was full of lost children, including Turlough, and she was Wendy playing mother. She kissed the Doctor’s forehead, but he caught her face between his hands before she could move away. He drew her down to his mouth for a kiss that was all adult.

“All right,” she said, pulling free and sliding off the bed. She helped him kick off his shoes. “Make yourself comfortable. I’m going to have a quick wash up. Don’t wait for me.”

The Doctor rearranged himself on the bed. “Tegan, allow me to thank Lord Martusan for the fur, on behalf of us both. That should discourage him.”

He sounded entirely too smug, and Tegan called over her shoulder, “Who said I wanted him discouraged? You’re a very busy man, Doctor.” She closed the hygiene chamber door on his exasperation.

 

Tegan exited clad in nightgown and robe. She padded barefoot to the bed and peeked at the Doctor. He was lying like a crusader’s tomb effigy, his clean profile still, hands solemnly crossed over his chest. She crawled onto the bed as quietly as she could and sat beside him.

Long ago, she had seen him lying like this and invoking his respiratory bypass while he waited for breathing apparatus to be assembled for him. She, Adric, and Nyssa had had to watch while his breath stopped. He had put himself in harm’s way for her many times since. Tonight he had fought for her, and a primitive part of her mind said he’d won her by right. It was tempting to surrender herself, but unjust. The Doctor had never expected reward for the brave things he did, he did them because they were right. She had to honor that.

He had selected one side of the fur coverlet and lay atop it. Tegan slipped under the other side and nestled down close by him. They were barely touching, but the tangible presence of him next to her was a comfort she’d missed for years. She fell quickly asleep.


	22. Chapter 22

The blare of an alarm jarred Tegan awake. She sat up, shoving at the furs. The Doctor was still lying on top of them, and showed no reaction to the loud noise.

“Shut it off! What the hell’s going on?” she inquired of the air.

“Message priority Omicron. Eyes only.”

“Omicron? I’ll kill him,” she complained, stumbling out of bed. She activated the message screen. It displayed in large letters: ‘GO OUT TO GARDEN NOW.’ The letters glowed under her incredulous gaze, and then winked out.

She could always ignore the message. Of course, she’d have to ignore it now. There was no time to think about it. Tegan pulled her dressing gown tighter around her and hurried out to the garden. The path before the door was clear of snow and warm underfoot, but only extended a couple of steps.

“Tegan!” a voice called, urgent but faint.

“Professor?” She looked around and saw nothing but snow-shrouded shapes.

“Up here!”

Tegan looked up, turning around to face the Citadel. Ten meters over her head, Professor Omicron’s head stuck out of a gap in the wall. She startled back.

“Hell’s teeth, Professor! What are you doing up there?”

“You didn’t answer my message! I had to come see you.”

“What do you mean? I got the message, it just came.”

“I sent one earlier. That’s not important. Tegan, can you get to the President? Keludar is in danger.”

“The Doctor’s in a healing trance. Why should anyone hurt Keludar? He’s just a student.”

“There’s no time to explain, and no time to rouse him from the trance—“ He broke off. He seemed to be looking at something but she couldn’t see what it was in the dim light. “I had to send the priority alert in the clear. They’re searching for me now. Can you get out without the guard seeing you?”

“No, but if you can wait a minute, I’ll come to you there. Is there room?”

“Yes, but how—“

Tegan didn’t pause to explain. She ran back in, pulled on her red boots, and got the lift belt out of the wardrobe. She’d never given it back to Keludar. She came out again and called up, “I’ve got a lift belt. I can climb up to you.”

She took a few paces back, ran at the wall below the Professor’s position, and jumped up at the last minute. There were crevices in the wall and she managed first to cling, then to haul herself up. Her initial momentum helped her. The Professor urged her on, and finally lowered his stole to pull her up the rest of the way.

“Very clever and resourceful, young lady. Now, we’d better get out of here. I’ll never be able to use this route again. They’re sure to find it. Security here is much more stringent than in the areas I usually frequent.”

“What’s this about Keludar?”

“Not now; when we’re safe.”

She had hold of his stole, and he practically towed her down the cramped passages. The lift belt was still active and her feet barely touched the floor. Like Little Nemo in Slumberland, she was off on another adventure, wearing nightclothes, and not entirely sure she was awake.

 

Tegan was soon lost in the maze of unmarked passages. The Professor kept charging off in unexpected directions. He would pause, make use of a gadget, and then hurry on. Finally, he came to a stop, and consulted at length with the gadget. “There, I’ve thrown off pursuit. Thank you for coming, Tegan. I wasn’t sure you’d still care about Keludar. Did you not receive the other message?”

“Would it have been from Environmental Services? There was a message I didn’t pick up. I thought…well, not important. Tell me what’s going on.”

“First, is the President badly injured?”

“Not according to him. I’d expect the Doctor to say he’s not as bad off as he is, but he can still move. He’s definitely got some bad bruises and maybe some cracked ribs. He said he’d have his hygiene chamber perform a basic medical scan.”

“That’s good, but not of much help to us. He should be awake by morning. Tegan, I was hoping to get you to intercede with him. I should have made that first message more urgent. Now Keludar may suffer for my desire to remain hidden.”

“Didn’t he get taken off to jail?”

Professor Omicron shook his head. “Not quite. He was confined, a status that means he’s awaiting the President’s pleasure. He should be not be harmed, and even be offered medical treatment. It’s a polite detainment, if that’s not an oxymoron.”

Tegan stared at him. “So what’s the emergency?”

The Professor’s head sunk down between his shoulders. One doesn’t often see a ten thousand year old Lord of Time looking sheepish, but that’s the only label Tegan had for the sight. “That fight may have been personally distressing for you, but it was also political theatre. Emotional detachment is necessary, but it can be taken to extremes. The President was willing to fight to protect you. That is praiseworthy. However, if Keludar dies tonight, while the President is incommunicado—“ he paused and looked at Tegan.

“It will look like he had him killed. But they can’t just kill him, can they? Whoever it is, they couldn’t reach him while he’s confined. There must be guards if he’s under arrest, however polite.”

“Let us speak as we move.” The Professor moved on, Tegan trailing close behind him. “You did just see me break through Presidential security, no? Of course, I’m unusually skilled, but crimes on Gallifrey are usually more sophisticated and involve political maneuverings that put one into a position to dictate policy. Most Gallifreyans don’t care about other worlds. They don’t even think of them. Intellectually, they know of them, but only Gallifrey is real to them.”

Tegan nodded. “I’ve been treated like that. Not unkindly, only unreal.”

“Keludar and the Doctor changed that. They made you significant. Those who watched understood that the laws of Gallifrey would crush you. You aren’t a statistic in a database; you are a living person who would suffer irreparable damage for no fault of your own. Even when the law is just, justice comes at a cost. Gallifrey is an ethical world, her citizens brought up to respect the rule of law. Without compassion, that rule is tyranny.”

“But Keludar--someone wants to kill him to blacken the Doctor’s reputation, to make him look like a tyrant?”

“To make him look unhinged by emotion: unfit to govern. It’s a character assassination, if you will.”

“Yeah, for the Doctor, but Keludar will be actually dead. What can we do? Isn’t there anyway we can protect him until the Doctor wakes up?”

“I can’t retrieve him from under the guards’ noses as I did with you. That area is actually built with security in mind. I had not planned to involve you directly, but perhaps… perhaps…”

Tegan knew the look of a Time Lord who’d thought of a cunning plan.

 

“I have come to see my champion, fallen in my cause.”

The guard on duty gaped first at Tegan, then at the ancient Time Lord behind her.

“I am the Lady Tegan’s counselor. Do not hinder our errand on pain of infamy.”

The guard recovered and activated a communicator. “Sir, the detainee has visitors.” Tegan and the Professor couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation. “Yes, sir, the Lady Tegan and… and…”

“Lord Azhangrell.”

“Lord Azhangrell. Lord Azhangrell, yes, sir.” After a moment, the guard switched off the communicator. “You are cleared to enter.” He touched a control and a wall panel slid aside. The door behind it had an unusual design: it irised open from the center.

Tegan went through without hesitation. The door irised shut; before them, another panel slid aside. Keludar appeared as Tegan entered, from another room of the small apartment. The Professor stayed behind. The panel slid shut again.

“Tegan, what are you doing here?” He stared at her in unflattering astonishment. His patrician nose was slightly swollen.

“I came to make sure you’re all right and no one is mistreating you. Have your injuries been tended?”

“I don’t need a Doctor,” he said, invoking a ghost of his usual wit.

“I’ve learned a few things about your challenge ritual. Since you are my champion, I have a responsibility to see to your care. It was wrong of the Lord President to force me to leave with him.” Tegan hoped she had the words right. She wasn’t quite lying.

Keludar frowned. “You don’t owe me anything, Tegan. I tricked you. I saw how angry and frightened you were, but I did what I decided to do anyway. You should hate me now.”

“I’ll thank you not to tell me how I should feel. It’s ridiculous coming from a Gallifreyan anyway,” she huffed.

He raised an eyebrow. “Very well. You came to check on me. I’m fine. Go back to your friend. I don’t need anything.” Keludar moved past her and reached for the communicator on the wall by the door.

Tegan lunged for his arm and restrained it with both hands. He stared at her as if she’d run barking mad. “Maybe I need something,” she argued.

“Tegan, what are you doing?” He glanced down. “What are you wearing?” he said in an entirely changed voice, proving himself undoubtedly male.

Tegan looked down too. Her robe was gaping open. Her nightgown had ribbon bows tied down the front, and was quite modest, with the bows tied. A couple of the ribbons had given way under the exigencies of running down corridors with a Time Lord. She let go of his arm hastily, scooted in front of the communicator, and pulled her robe shut again. “That’s not important.”

“You came straight from him, didn’t you?” Keludar’s expression turned stony. “What do you want from me?”

“All right. I came here while the Doctor is in his healing trance because I thought you might be able to help me get a warning out. He knows about the Omicron conspiracy. He’s going to question you with the mind probe.”

“Omicron? Why should the President waste his time on that dotty old lastgen? So, the paranoia is setting in. He’ll be going old Borusa’s route—or perhaps Morbius’ route.” Keludar smiled unpleasantly and reached out to the tie of her robe, flicking it with his fingers.

“Not the old man. The students. He makes a wonderful cover for all sorts of plots, doesn’t he?” Tegan put a sly note in her voice.

“For pranks,” he said dismissively. “The senior class couldn’t conspire their way out of a room of mirrors. The faculty, on the other hand—you know Borusa isn’t the first President to have taught at the Academy.”

“Of course you’d say that. You know you’re being monitored, don’t you? You’re playing for an audience.” She listened for sounds coming the door. Where was her cue?

Keludar laughed. “That makes two of us. I’m sure every guard who can manage it is watching the monitor feed, hoping the savage alien female will have her way with me. Which we both know is not why you’re here. So what’s the real reason, Tegan?”

The door trembled. The Professor’s muffled voice shouted, “Let me out!”

Keludar blinked. “Rabbits,” said Tegan exasperatedly, and to Keludar’s continued confusion. She turned around and activated the communicator. “Guard? There’s something wrong with the door. My counselor is trapped and I need to get out of here. The Lord President is expecting me to return within the hour.”

#”I’ve called Maintenance, my lady. It will be sorted out shortly.”#

Tegan sighed and pounded on the door. “They’re working on it!” she shouted back. She faced Keludar again. “So this is a confinement room, right? There’s a bit of human poetry about stone walls not making a prison. Looks like a jail cell to me.”

“Yes, it is.” Keludar no longer looked bewildered. He was frowning. The mighty brain of a senior Academy student was at work behind his sapphire blue eyes.

“What do you think the Doctor will do with you?”

“I don’t much care,” he said brusquely.

“Why do you dislike him so much? Looking back… it’s plain you didn’t like him before you met me.”

“He breaks the rules and gets away with it. Every law seems to have an exception just for him. Not many Gallifreyans know very much about the Doctor. He left the planet; he’s insane; they don’t care. Even now that he’s President, they think it’s all right because the High Council supports him.” There was indifference in his voice as if he spoke of something he’d cared about once, but no longer.

Tegan leaned against the door. “You care.”

“I wonder what makes him so different from Koschei. Not that Koschei deserves my defence.”

“Or wants it. He’s an evil, callous, murdering, arrogant, self-aggrandizing bastard…I should have stopped at evil. He is that, deliberately.” Tegan stopped, remembering the blood in Keludar’s veins. “I’m sorry.”

“Why be sorry for the truth? I shall leave you to await rescue, lady.” Keludar turned away.

“No, wait!” Tegan caught his wrist. “You go when I say you can go,” she said, improvising wildly.

Keludar said wryly, “I’ve failed as your champion. There is no other service I may do you.” He glanced fleetingly at the neck of her robe, then tugged his arm free.

Tegan flung herself at Keludar, locked her wrists behind his neck, and kissed him.


	23. Chapter 23

Keludar was so tall that she missed his mouth and found herself kissing his chin. He had fast reactions, correcting the angle and kissing her with undisguised hunger. Tegan whispered, “Please,” against his mouth, trying to convey the rest of the message with her eyes. She didn’t pull free. They were being watched.

Suddenly the air was full of heavy mist. The temperature plummeted.

He broke the kiss but didn’t let go of her. “This is madness.”

Tegan hoped his grave expression meant he had got her message. “I’m only doing what I think is right, Keludar. What is this muck?” She shivered.

“Fire suppression system. Perhaps they triggered an emergency response trying to get through the door.”

The lights went out. The glow of emergency lighting came on in flickers at the edge of the ceiling and floor. Then even that firefly glow died. The door panel slid open. “Hurry,” said the Professor. He was holding some tool that made enough light for them to move towards him. Keludar lagged behind, though he released Tegan.

“Please, Kel, you’ve got to come. The Professor thinks they mean to kill you and blame the Doctor.”

“Ah,” said Keludar gloomily, as one who has foreseen the worst happening and is unsurprised to be correct. He followed her closely. 

The Professor handed him the tool. “That has a direction indicator. Follow the beam. You’ll be going down almost right away. Tegan, activate the lift belt.”

She’d taken it off and put it on again under her robe. Now she reached in, fumbled at the controls, and felt the weight of the world drop away. The effect was more noticeable in the darkness. They followed the beam. It led towards an opening that hadn’t been in this small passage when she’d gone through the first time. “You’re a genius, Professor,” she said fondly.

“Quite right, though this was easy.”

Keludar had to duck slightly to get through the hatch. There was an edge all the way around the opening. Tegan hopped over it and felt herself briefly hanging in the air, a delicious feeling that made her laugh softly.

A shove in the back sent her floundering into Keludar. When they’d sorted themselves out, she turned to look. The hatch had closed with the Professor on the other side.

The emergency lighting came on again. This section of passage ended a short distance past a floor hatch nearby. Otherwise it was a dead end.

“He did that on purpose.” Keludar knelt down to lift the hatch cover.

“We can’t leave him!”

A computer voice announced, “Warning. This area will be pumped full of inert gas in 10 seconds.” It echoed from all around.

Using only her fingernails, Tegan was prying at the hatch between her and the Professor. “I should have brought Leela’s knife,” she moaned. She could not find where the hatch unsealed. 

“It’s a magnetic bond,” Keludar said from behind her. “Tegan, we can’t get through. He planned this.”

“Inert gas injection in five seconds.”

“Professor! Don’t do this!”

There was a slight vibration in the floor. “The hatch!” Keludar exclaimed. He grabbed her around the waist and leapt towards the opening. They fell through. It was tight for two, even as tightly as Keludar was holding her. They kept scraping against the walls of the shaft. She couldn’t tell how fast or far they fell.

Tegan had stopped struggling after the first protest. “Kel, all Time Lords have that respiratory bypass, don’t they?”

“Yes, the Professor will be fine. They might even let him go once he wakes up. Time Lords who have passed through their last regeneration have many privileges.”

They reached bottom. “Turn off the lift belt. The two of us using it at once is a strain on the power pack. We may need it again.”

Tegan turned it off. Keludar consulted their guide while she looked up the way they came. He put a hand on her shoulder. “We had to go. The floor hatch was about to be sealed to keep in the gas.”

“I know.” She turned and his hand fell away. “So where do we go now? Maybe somewhere with a little more light?”

“Professor Omicron didn’t give you any more instructions?”

“There wasn’t time. He had to coach my ‘Lady Tegan’ act. I… I had to be convincing.”

The tiny scatter of light showed her his tall form, but very little detail. She thought she could make out the glint of his eyes. “Yes, I know you kissed me to make me stay near the door. It was very effective.”

Tegan had had her mind read before, and not liked it, but it was worse having the thought plucked out of her head before she’d thought it. “Pardon me for trying to save your life!”

“And the Doctor’s political reputation.” Keludar didn’t have to say it in any particular way for it to sound nasty, not in the dark.

Tegan fumed. “He’d put your life before his reputation, and so do I. I’ve had enough of your jealousy, Keludar.”

“I’m sick of it, myself. Tegan, I’m going to determine our route. While I’m doing that, you could help by turning your back on me, opening your robe, and retying those ribbons.” Keludar turned his back on her and moved the guide tool in a slow arc.

She wasn’t sure what he was doing, but the air and darkness were thick around her. The brush of her fingertips on cloth sounded like a rasping file.

“I said, turn your back.” The tension in his voice reminded her of how alone they were.

Tegan turned quickly. She fumbled blindly over the ribbons, not entirely sure if she was pairing them correctly. Cool darkness seeped through the openings of the gown and across her exposed skin. She tied her robe as tightly as it would close.

“I can barely see anything, and it must be worse for you. We ought to come into an area with more light eventually, but for now, stay close, and I’ll warn you of any obstructions. We’ve lingered too long. This is a maintenance junction. There should be light here, even if it’s only accessed once a century.”

“Get a move on, then.”

 

She followed him through the darkness. When she’d traveled like this with the Professor, Tegan had felt confident in her guide. The Professor was like a wise old wizard in a fairy tale. If you trusted him, it would all come right. Keludar was the wizard’s scapegrace apprentice.

The blue guide light began pulsing. “Hurry,” Keludar called to her, and jogged ahead. The passage floor clattered under her boot heels as she tried to keep up with him.

Blue light flared. Keludar skidded to a stop and ran the tool up and down the wall. A panel slid aside.

The lights came on. Tegan blinked. Keludar took her hand and tugged her after him into the opening. “It won’t stay open long.” It was dark again in this new passage after the panel slid shut.

“Where the hell are we?”

“Under the Capitol. This area seems to have been sealed off. I think the emergency conditions must have made it accessible to us and that’s why we were signaled to hurry. The sensors in the guide must have picked up that they were returning the environmental systems to normal status.” He started walking again, picking his way carefully.

Part of the journey was a long flight of stairs going up. After a while, Tegan’s knees started to ache. “Have you any idea where we’re going, yet? I’ve never seen stairs like this anywhere in the Citadel so far.”

“Nor have I. It must be part of an obsolete disaster management plan. I think we’re headed towards a residential area.” Keludar wasn’t even breathing hard.

“Maybe we could use the lift belt?”

He stopped and she bumped into him.

“Why did you stop?”

“You’re tired, aren’t you? Do you want to rest?”

Tegan’s pride was stung. “I can keep going a while yet. Let’s not stop, all right?” She started to move around him.

He put an arm out to bar her. “Use the lift belt. I’m not sure how much farther we have to go, and it will conserve your strength.”

A couple of dozen levels later, Tegan was glad of the lift belt. As long as she kept her steps light, she gently bounced from step to step. The only downside was a feeling of minor nausea.

Keludar moved off the stairs onto a landing. Tegan leaned heavily against the wall. “Are we there yet?” she cracked.

“We’re not going any farther up. Take a moment to catch your breath. There should be a door here.” He was breathing heavily, but in a controlled way.

Holding the light in front of him haloed his outline so that Tegan could watch him moving along the landing. She was tired enough that it took her awhile to realize he was having some sort of difficulty. “What’s wrong?”

“I found the door, but the light isn’t pointing towards it. If it’s not the right path, and I open it, there could be some sort of alarm set off.”

“Professor Omicron’s not much for normal doors.”

“Quite so.” He retreated to her side, held out the light again from that position, and then from a few steps away. “Ah. That explains it. It’s down low. You’ll have to crouch.”

“Bloody marvelous.”

In fact, Keludar stopped halfway through, and said something muffled but irate before moving forwards. He turned in the darkness and called back to her, “It’s a double opening. You’ll need to go over two curbs.”

Tegan banged herself through the darkness, swearing under her breath. She should be in bed right now, snuggled up next to the Doctor. Of course, knowing the Doctor, he’d rather be here in the dark. He’d probably enjoy it immensely. She scraped her ear on the edge of the second opening. “Gallifreyans,” Tegan said, finding it the vilest oath available.

“You can stand up, but there’s not much room. There’s another door here… oh.” The door opened into light and he walked out of the small dark room. Tegan followed him. She recognized the style. It resembled the antechamber to her apartment.

Keludar was looking at the tool. “The light’s gone out. This must be it.” He moved past her and checked back the way they had crawled. “The panels closed after us.” He shrugged and closed the door. “Shall we explore?”

Tegan moved on without him. She had a hunch about where they were. “I think this is the Professor’s apartment. He said he had one under his real name, whatever that is.”

“Really? With an active household account, this makes an excellent hideout.”

“Dibs on the hygiene chamber.”

“Go right ahead. We’re both rather dusty.” He grinned at her, touched his cheek, and went to the front door of the apartment and activated the door monitor.

Tegan stuck her tongue out at his back and went looking for the hygiene chamber. She rubbed her cheek and her fingers came away stained.

A blinking message light drew her attention to the contact point. Tegan pushed the activator, wondering if the Professor had left them an explanation. That would be a rare gift from a Time Lord.

“If you are listening to this message, then you have reached safety without me. This is a dangerous game, and the odds are that I am detained or dead. In either event, I wish to tender you an apology. I know you have been aware of some of my manipulations, but perhaps you do not yet comprehend the scope of my research. I fear Gallifrey will stagnate into a dead world if some action isn’t taken to revitalize her people. The Web of Time may be of paramount importance, but I say to you that change is part of time and therefore it must be part of us, who guard the Web.

“This does not touch on my apology. You were one of my prime targets to be an agent of change. Irreverence has a value the comfortable do not appreciate, for the irreverent see through false pride, and perceive uncomfortable truths. One such truth is that I encouraged you to pursue the Lady Tegan. Andred is a fine Guard commander, but he will never shake Gallifrey. Such potential lies in you, and in the Doctor as well. He seemed neglectful of his companion, and I failed to understand the bonds that connect them. In one hour, I learned more from of friendship from a barely grown girl than I have known for several thousand years. Perhaps in my youth I was not so hard hearted, but emotions are of the moment. I do not remember how it feels to be young. Outside the Citadel, the seasons change, but it has been winter inside for a long time.”

Tegan became aware that Keludar was standing behind her, but she paid him no more attention than that.

The message continued. “I have sent word to Lady Tegan asking her to intervene on your behalf with the Lord President. Do not leave this apartment before morning at the earliest. If I do not return, you will have to manage as best you may. Keludar, Gallifrey may discount you because of your genetic heritage, but I say to you that you are very much needed here. Do not despair of your future.”

That was the end of the message. Tegan didn’t know whether to curse or cry. Perhaps an ancient Time Lord couldn’t help but be manipulative. “That… sly old fox,” she said with infuriated affection.

“He didn’t plan for you to hear that message. I wonder what other plots of his have gone wrong.” Keludar contemplated the blank message panel, his handsome face set in a grave expression.

Tegan availed herself of the privacy of the hygiene chamber. Now they’d have to wait. She hated that part.


	24. Chapter 24

The wardrobe was not cooperating, unless the Professor wanted her to dress as him at a costume party. She had to settle for having her robe and gown cleaned. When she came out of the chamber, Keludar went in. Tegan sat down at the household system interface and asked for a status report. Gallifrey didn’t have news as she knew it. They reported civic events, not gossip or entertainment. There was no security alert mentioned, only a notice of the date of the Council of Time Lords next general meeting and a contact point for sending requests to add items to the agenda.

She was stuck in this apartment with Keludar for the foreseeable future. She wanted a nap, but considering the intimate contact they’d had, she felt awkward about sleeping. Tegan didn’t believe he’d try anything, but to her it signaled that she was comfortable being vulnerable in his presence. Tegan sat turning various plans over in her head. The more she thought about it, the less she liked the idea of leaving the Professor to the dubious mercies of the Capitol Guard. Waiting around doing nothing for hours would be trusting to fate.

If only she could contact the Doctor or Turlough! What real risk was there in sending a message from here? Her hand hesitated over the contact point controls.

“What are you up to?” Keludar emerged, wearing one of the Professor’s sky blue robes. He was tall enough to carry it off.

Tegan snatched her hand back guiltily, then glared at him. She had nothing to be guilty about!

“I ought to get in touch with the Doctor or Turlough. The Doctor may still be in a trance, but I could leave him a message. Turlough is clever in tight situations. We need to put him in the know.” Tegan scowled. Said out loud, her ideas didn’t sound so hot.

“And if the enemy has someone who can intercept messages sent to their contact points?” He snorted. “The enemy. I wish I knew which person thought I’d make a good weapon against the President. You realize, if they catch us together, my death will look even more convincing? Murdered by the Doctor in a jealous rage.” He glanced at her, smiling slightly.

“No wonder you people hardly ever have sex if you think it will turn you into a monster.” Tegan did not hide her disgust.

“As a matter of fact…” he turned away from her. “Not important. I found out where this apartment is. It’s in the Lektopharvaheet Elite Residential quarter. It’s listed as being a contested property in some thousand year old civil suit.”

“Not Lord Azanghrell’s, then,” Tegan commented thoughtfully.

“Who is Lord Azanghrell?”

“That’s the name the Professor gave the guard. He’d told me before that Lord Azanghrell was the only other Time Lord over ten thousand years old, and that he hadn’t come out of his apartment since his final regeneration.”

“Never comes out of his apartment at all? That sounds suspicious. It’s not like the Professor doesn’t enjoy his little games.”

“You think that’s his real name? Lord Azanghrell?”

#”No, it is not. Azanghrell is my real name.”#

Tegan and Keludar stared in alarm at the contact point controls from which the voice had emerged.

#”I live across the hall. You had better come see me.”#

Tegan looked at Keludar. “Are we going to do what he says?”

“Do you want to sit around here all night?”

“Good point.”

 

When they opened the door to their apartment, an indicator light lit up above a door across the hall and down a few paces. Their destination clear, they walked down the hall. Keludar touched the door and it opened to the pressure of his hand. He and Tegan exchanged wary glances again. It was almost certainly foolish to leave the Professor’s appointed hideout, but they had been found out by this unknown quantity.

Keludar murmured, “Never leaves his room?”

“That’s what the Professor said,” she whispered back.

“Maybe you should wait—“ Tegan surged in past Keludar before he could try to physically bar her, let alone finish his suggestion. “Very well,” he said resignedly, following her in.

The door closed behind them and the next door opened. They followed the clearly indicated path. The next room was a parlor of sorts. It was clean: too clean, as though no one had used it for a very long time. There were no identifiably personal touches visible. Another door opened. If this apartment’s layout resembled that of the one they had come from, it would be the bedchamber.

This room was used, and identifiably personal. By unspoken agreement, they stopped shoulder to shoulder in the doorway.

There was very little furniture in the room. It had presumably been taken away so as not to clutter the space of the occupant. He sat in a huge bowl like hover chair, draped with blue and gold. Lord Azanghrell reminded Tegan of one of those kitschy dolls with broad skirts used to hide rolls of spare toilet tissue in a bathroom.

“I never leave this room. Why should I? In my thousands of years, I’ve seen all of Gallifrey that I care to see. My body may remain in this room, but my mind roams unhindered. If your mind remains bound, it doesn’t matter how far your body goes. You, alien, are an excellent example. The Lord President has taken you on many journeys, but has your mind expanded, or are you the same primitive creature you were at the start?” 

As Azanghrell spoke, the chair drifted closer to them. Keludar’s stance shifted slightly to put his shoulder ahead of Tegan’s. “I’ve seen your biodata, Patrexean,” he said to Keludar. “I think you’re more like Goth than Borusa or Koschei. They possessed true ambition. Goth was little more than Koschei’s pawn: a status-seeking second-rater whose heroic profile and full head of hair were his greatest assets. Gallifreyans may be bred to think, and trained to think, but thinking is a tiresome activity and most find they get by without it.”

Tegan stared at the old man. His head looked tiny under the golden cowl, dwarfed by the high collared ceremonial cloak. “If I stuck a pin in you, would it let out all the hot air in one bang?” Despite the bold words, she didn’t try to come out from behind Keludar.

“Aggressive little creature, aren’t you? Doubtless your presence helps Theta Sigma refresh his rebellious impulses.”

Keludar took a step forward. “I’m not responsible for my genes, Lord Azanghrell, only what I do with my potential. You invited us in. What use have you for a savage and a wastrel?”

He came closer still. His eyes glittered out from the pits of his pink balloon face. “I am Gallifrey, grown old and fat from feeding off the power created by our ancestors. We forewent religion and all the superstitious paraphernalia of the Pythia’s reign, only to replace her with Rassilon. How have we grown since his time, except to become more satisfied of our rightness? We are bloated with arrogance, swollen with the secrets of Time. Rassilon is our god and our devil. Borusa was a hero for trying to usurp Rassilon’s legacy. When he came to power, he realized that he was master of a dying world, and as Gallifrey goes, so goes the universe. That is what Rassilon did to us.”

For the first time, Tegan noticed Azanghrell’s hands. Sausage-like though his fingers were, he wore a ring on each one, and his thumbnails were talon-length. “What are the rings for?” she asked, getting in her question during a pause in his rant.

The chair dropped so that Azanghrell looked at her face to face. Tegan fought down nausea and the urge to flee.

“My personal instrumentality. With these rings, I control all necessary functions of life support, information procurement and storage, and communication. For instance, the Capitol Guard will be here shortly.” Azanghrell was so close now that he had to pivot the chair to face Keludar, as if his eyes were so sunken that their field of vision was limited. “You asked what use I had for you.” The doors to the outside swung open behind them. “You told that fool Omicron that you would fight for your life. I want to see if that’s true.”

Keludar asked sharply, “Did the Professor tell you what I said to him?”

“I programmed that guide tool. I’m a far better engineer than he’d ever be if he lived twice as long. I’ve made a lot of devices for him. He attempted to convince me that you were worth saving. You want to be a Time Lord, don’t you? Did you think they’d hand you an extra heart and that would be it? Is that all you want, a sinecure? There have been in Gallifrey’s history very few true Lords of Time. The rest are pampered scholars.”

Tegan drew in a sharp breath. “We’ve got to go now. He’s delaying us on purpose.”

Azanghrell tried to turn his head. The fat deposits rippled across his face as it turned red. Maybe he would explode. Tegan did not stay to watch. She fled, Keludar on her heels. “Turn right and run,” Kel said. “I’ll catch up. Run!”

The beat of a single heart drummed in Tegan’s ears. Keludar caught her up, passed her, and grabbed her hand to drag her faster. When they got to the next corner, he blocked her with his arm. “Watch that way,” he whispered, staying close to the end of the corridor. He dropped to one knee and risked a peek back the way they’d run. Tegan kept an eye out in the direction he asked, but her ears were tuned the other way.

She heard a faint murmur of voices. “It’s the Guard. They’re checking both doors, weapons drawn.” Keludar stood up slowly. “I jammed that tool into Azanghrell’s door. Be ready to run.” 

A bang like a big firecracker echoed down the hall. Keludar grabbed her hand again. He was hurrying but didn’t break into a full run until they turned the next corner. Keludar wasn’t merely fleeing, he was headed somewhere. He turned corners without hesitation. Tegan was lost almost immediately. The turns and bends followed a pattern that did not make sense to her.

Finally, he pulled up. Tegan leaned against his back, breathing hard, and looked past his elbow. They were at the end of a passage that led to a gallery several stories above a public area. “Did you mean to come here, Kel?”

“That’s the concourse that lies before the entrance to the Panopticon. You’re right about contacting our friends. We need to be seen running, we need the word to spread. We’re the latest gossip; we may as well make use of our notoriety. After all the hiding we’ve done, it may surprise our pursuers to see us out in the open.”

“But if we’re taken prisoner, after being seen together publicly, it will only make their story more convincing.”

“Ah, yes, the illicit partners, fleeing the President’s wrath.” He glanced down at her clinging to his elbow. “If only that were true.”

“Kel!” Tegan smacked his arm hard enough to sting her hand. He grinned at her and her anger faded. 

“We only need one thing to make this plan work: an escape route. There are stairs that lead up and down behind the galleries in the Panopticon itself. They’re like the stairs we were on, for emergency exits.”

That’s when Tegan had the Idea.

“I know exactly how to get out of the Panopticon. We need to get out, so Out we’ll go.”

Kel stared at her. “You mean Outside, out?” he asked carefully.

“The Professor showed me an observation post he had above the galleries inside the Panopticon. I could find it again, and from there I know how to get out without going back into public.”

“That would be good, but running away upstairs would take a lot more effort and increase our chances of being shot or caught. Which side of the Panopticon is this observation post?”

“The far side from the entrance, near the corner diagonal from the dais. There’s a staircase, like the ones you were talking about, behind the gallery. That’s how I left after talking to the Professor.”

“It might work,” Kel muttered to himself, then said to her, “We’ve got to move. Stay on the wall side of me and keep in step.” He let her come alongside him, then started walking towards the Panopticon. Tegan was on his left; to his right, the wall became a safety rail “After we go through the doors, stop and give me the lift belt. Can you hang onto me as hard as you can? I’ll need a hand free to work the controls. This will be a little tricky.”

“Oh, hell, you’ve got some daft plan, don’t you? Why can’t I be the one to wear the belt and you carry me? Then I’d have both hands free for the controls.”

“An insane plan fits insane circumstances. I’ve had a lot more practice with lift belts, and this maneuver will require finesse. We may be about to come under fire. There are guards down in the concourse.”

“Oh, hell,” Tegan said again. Then Keludar told her his plan and left her bereft of expletives.

 

Two Time Lords were holding a debate in the Panopticon. There were a few visitors watching in person, but most observers viewed the information feed from the Panopticon monitors.

“It is a common misapprehension that Gallifrey refrains from interference in the affairs of other worlds solely to guard the Web of Time. In fact, this policy is altruistic. Younger cultures need to develop along their own, unique courses, not copy the ways of Gallifrey in an attempt to rival her power.”

“I am sure that my distinguished fellow Time Lord has some passing familiarity with Redevorn’s Index of Intercultural Fertilization? In Gallifrey’s period of greatest development, we had contact with countless worlds, as well as with cultures that arguably had greater knowledge at that time then our own. We benefited from this contact. If our aim is altruism, we should not entirely close our world off to others. We could teach by example, if nothing else. Nor should we belittle the possibility of yet learning from other worlds. If these ‘unique courses’ are of any value, then they will yield information that Gallifrey does not possess because she is so narrowly dedicated to her own vision of advancement.”

The first Time Lord glared at his debate opponent. “Intercultural Fertilization? Is that what you would call the debacle of the President’s Otherstide celebration? Gallifreyans, beings of the noblest ancestry, possessing knowledge that other races only dream of—dancing! Simulating primitive behavior! Is it really a demonstration of mathematics and aesthetics to hop across a room to music?”

Weapons’ fire sounded. A woman screamed, the sound descending yet growing louder at the same time. Two figures leaped from the highest balcony, describing an impossibly wide arc that took them to the center of the Panopticon. The woman was the President’s notorious human female, Tegan Jovanka, called ‘Lady’ by courtesy. The ‘Lady’ Tegan was clinging to a blond man wearing the robes of a Gallifreyan elder.

“Help, help, HE-eeeeeEEEEELP!” Her shriek echoed through the Panopticon as even more impossibly, the man bounded with her up into the air onto the far gallery. They disappeared into the shadows. All that was left was one little bright red object on the floor. A Panopticon usher picked it up.

It was a high-heeled boot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say I am sorry if Azanghrell furthers a fat-is-evil stereotype. Fat people are no more good or evil than people of other sizes. Unless they’re in float chairs, like BARON HARKONNEN, and think they embody the soul of a planet. Cos that’s pretty dark.


	25. Chapter 25

“It f-f-fell when we l-landed. D-d-d-on’t shout at m-me. I c-c-couldn’t h-help it.”

“Even if you had both, we still couldn’t stay out here. It’s far too cold for you.” Keludar had his arms around her; she was huddled against his chest. Her bare foot was tucked up under her gown. The still booted foot was not much warmer.

Tegan made a deliberate effort to control her chattering teeth. “I wish this garden would obey me like the Presidential garden does.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Doctor said it was my garden as long as I was on Gallifrey. I can even keep him out if I like, short of an emergency.”

Keludar rubbed her back. After a moment of silence, he said, “Repeat after me.”

“What?”

“Just do it. I, the Lady Tegan Jovanka, by the authority invested in me by the Lord President of the High Council of the Time Lords of Gallifrey, command the environmental systems of this garden to respond to my orders.”

Tegan got the idea by the time she was done repeating the formal phrases. “Warm the path where I’m standing to a safe temperature for a human.”

A billow of steam rose around them. The snow melted. Tegan felt heat radiating up under her robe, and put her foot down. “Ahhhhh,” she said, as the warmth crept upwards.

“We won’t freeze to death before they catch us. That’s an improvement.” Keludar let her go.

“I wonder if any of these terraces are connected. System, if there’s a path to terraces on other levels, please indicate it by removing the snow in that direction.” Tegan felt frankly smug when the path melted away before them.

“They’ll see where we’ve gone,” Keludar objected mildly.

“I have got a plan for that.” She grinned at him.

“You’re the Outside expert. I defer to your superior knowledge.”

“Ohh, yeah. I don’t hear that often.” Tegan took off her one boot and walked barefoot along the warm path. It led to a little platform on the edge of the terrace.

“It’s a lift.” Keludar leaned over the edge. “It had better work. The lift belt is burnt out.”

“Pity, it came in so handy. I don’t know how you did that hop. It felt exactly like we were falling.”

“We were. I turned on the belt at the last second and, mmm, reversed our inertia, or close enough.”

Tegan stared at him. “And if your timing had been off?”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “It wasn’t. Now, what is your trick for covering our tracks?”

“I think it will work. The Professor did it once.” She cleared her throat. “System, erase our tracks.” For a minute, nothing happened. Then all the snow melted. “That’s not quite what I had in mind,” Tegan sighed. “All system functions return to normal.”

“Our tracks are gone. Let’s go.” Keludar activated the platform controls and they sank slowly down. Cold wind blew up under Tegan’s robes and stole her warmth away. She put the one boot back on and shivered miserably.

“Say something, Kel. Help me get my mind off this blasted chill.”

“I’ve been thinking about Lord Azanghrell. I don’t think he called the guards on us. I think they were already on their way. He may have actually helped us by making sure we were alert and ready to run. I was watching: when they did show up, they first went to the door of the Professor’s hideout, and only one of them looked at the guide tool I jammed in Azanghrell’s door.”

Tegan felt cold for entirely different reasons now. “So how did they know to check the hideout? Do you think they got it out of the Professor? With that… mind probe?”

“They need authority from the High Council to use it. Of course, if they don’t cavil at murder, why should they care about regulations?”

“You like him, don’t you?”

“He’s one of the least boring people I know. I suppose I’ve spent more time with him than any other student. There are only a handful of us who know there’s a person behind the legend. He likes it that way.” Keludar leaned back against the rail, looking quite unmoved by the cold. “You know, despite his message, I didn’t need him to manipulate me into pursuing you. It came naturally, which I suppose is the problem.”

“Pursuing me might be perfectly natural, but betting about it was rotten thing to do.”

“I know. I did my best to atone.”

Tegan snorted white vapor. “What, by nearly getting my mind wiped?”

Keludar straightened up. “The Doctor brought that up. They would have a hard time doing it to you against his wishes, even if they enforced that part of the regulations. Indeed, his bringing up the issue would have compelled them to operate on you. It seemed to be a sore point with him. You’ll have to ask him why he added that jeopardy to your plight.” He turned his back on her and looked down.

“Don’t think I won’t,” she said. He didn’t seem to be paying attention.

“Tegan? I think we’re going back inside. Whether we want to or not.”

Walls closed around them. Tegan looked up to see a roof sliding across the tunnel. Whatever course they were on, they were committed to it now.

Five minutes later:

“I can’t believe we’re going through a long passage in the dark, _again_. It’s so Freudian.”

“Freudian?”

Of course, she couldn’t expect him to know about Freud. Tegan was bored, scared, and irritated enough to explain. “Freud studied the way people think and how language and visual symbols contain a lot of sexual metaphor.”

“Going through a dark passage relates to sex? That’s… disconcerting. Tegan, our relationship has been all about dark passages.” He sounded amused.

Tegan glared in the direction of his voice. There were occasional lights, but right now, it was pitch black. “For instance, that trip up the Spire: when a man takes a woman up the highest tower available with artificial assistance, the metaphor couldn’t be more obvious.”

“A tall tower? I begin to see. It is true that I took you up there hoping to continue my seduction in privacy. Therefore, the Spire symbolizes my ultimate intent to engage in intercourse with you. At least I’m ambitious. What do the lift belts represent?”

“You needed help getting up,” Tegan explained, vowing she’d kiss a psychologist if she ever got back to Earth. Keludar’s answering silence was music to her ears. If only she could do this to the Doctor--but he’d probably had met Freud in person.

They went through a lit area. Keludar looked distinctly peeved. “I suppose that’s a coded reference to the tumescence of the male genital organs?” he inquired at last.

“Freud was an early researcher. There are other opinions. However, he did have some interesting ideas about the dangers of unhealthy repression of sexual urges that could apply to this whole bloody planet.” Tegan snarled the last words, then wondered where her anger had come from.

“I’d like to point out,” Kel’s voice said from the darkness, “That I was the one who was willing to continue the encounter and you were the one who ran away. I was repressed against my will.”

“You’ve got har—“ Tegan stopped right there. “I couldn’t be what you wanted. If you visited Earth, you’d find any number of volunteers for the job. It’s easy for some people, for many people, to indulge. I’m not good at doing anything the easy way.” What could she say to him about emotions that wasn’t a cliché? The words were dust in her mouth. He was Gallifreyan. The heart was a circulatory organ.

“It’s not easy with the Doctor?” Tegan didn’t answer, not sure if she wanted to discuss this with Keludar. He went on by himself. “Watching you dance with him taught me more about kissing than our kiss. You moved together as though connected below the level of conscious thought. You gave yourself to him with the look on your face. Anything I could want from you he already had, but had not claimed. I knew he’d never kissed you, because if he had, you would never have kissed me.”

They sat in silence, while the platform moved down at an angle. It wasn’t fast, but Tegan’s ears kept feeling the change in pressure. They were going deep.

“It’s not easy. It’s mostly my fault, I think. He knows a lot about humans, but that’s not the same as knowing about me. I’d got it in my head there was no chance…” Tegan shook her head. Keludar had surprised her with his insight, but there were things she couldn’t discuss with him. He didn’t belong inside that privacy.

“Whatever you did in the dance seemed to work fine for him.”

His words hung in the darkness like stars being painted onto the sky. A chill ran up her spine.

“It was an interesting contrast to see you dance with Lord Martusan. There’s someone who thinks you’re merely a pet.”

“Oh, my God. That’s where we’re going. Down into the environmental systems core. I’ve been down there, in the hydroponics facility. I hope someone heard me yelling for help in the Panopticon, because no one’s going to hear us down here.”

“No one but a few nutritechs, and Lord Martusan. Do you think he’ll turn us in?”

“He’ll try to play the situation for his own benefit.”

 

The platform came to a halt. A door panel slid open. Tegan blinked in the sudden light. It only took a moment for her eyes to adjust. It did look like the area she toured: infrequent pools of light with shadowy areas in between. “How much attention do they pay to monitoring down here?”

“Not much, I hope. I don’t know this area. We’ll have to look for signs.”

“At least we won’t starve. Speaking of which, I’m hungry.”

“I’ve got some food pills in my pocket, if you like.”

“Clever you, thanks!” She accepted a couple of pills. By now Tegan was used to them, though she preferred to wash them down with water or juice.

“You’re welcome. What we need to do is get taken into the custody of the Outer Guard. Andred wouldn’t let anything untoward happen to us.”

“That’s brilliant! Turning ourselves in voluntarily will count in our favor, surely?”

“The problem is we have no proof of the plot. About the only thing dodgy is that we were shot at while having merely escaped from confinement. That offense does not call for violent apprehension. Probably it will all be covered up.”

“Hmph. I wish Leela were here. I hate political intrigue.” Tegan skirted an area of light. She and Keludar were moving side by side.

“Is it the same on your world? Surely politics function much the same everywhere a culture places value on governmental power.”

“The politics are the same, only with more bloodshed. And sex.” Tegan slapped her boot against her thigh.

“Why are you still carrying that?” Keludar asked idly, before resuming the conversation. “Sex appears to be a time intensive activity. How do they manage to fit it into their schedules?”

“It would be leaving a trail? I can’t just leave it lying around.” Tegan shrugged. “Sex can be very quick, especially if you don’t care about your partner. And it’s not all that, you know. Plenty of humans don’t have sex. There’s some famous saying about the position being ridiculous and the pleasure fleeting.”

“Whoever said that must have a narrow view of sexual activity. I find that the sex act can be prolonged for the extent of one’s ability to concentrate on it.” Lord Martusan stepped into the light that shone down on a cluster of non-Gallifreyan shrubbery. His green robes harmonized with the foliage.

“Uh, good evening, Lord Martusan,” Tegan said, wretchedly aware that she was wearing a dressing gown and carrying one boot. Acting casual was not in the cards.

“I’ve observed you have a taste for older men, but an Elder?” He surveyed Keludar, who looked back at him with far less civility. “Ah, I see it is your young Champion. I believe your name is Keludar. Welcome to the domain of my keeping.” Martusan looked back to Tegan. “When I was notified that I was receiving a shipment from the President, I did not guess that it would be such a delightful surprise, or two fold.”

“What—“

“You used some kind of Presidential override on the environmental systems and activated a transport mechanism that hasn’t been used for many centuries. I am notified of unusual events that occur within my purview. Now I reap the good fortune of my forethought.” Martusan gestured down an avenue between plantings. “I think you would do well to accompany me.” He added with the cool edge of a Time Lord, “Look to your charge, Champion. She is chilled to the bone.”

Keludar took her by the elbow. They didn’t discuss it, only followed Martusan. The pause to speak to him had made Tegan aware of the lingering cold that she hadn’t managed to shed in the relative warmth inside. The boot started to slip from her numb fingers, and instead of tightening her grasp, Tegan impulsively let it drop into a planter. The thought of leaving a clue of where they were before they gave themselves into Martusan’s clutches comforted her.


	26. Chapter 26

The fur throw from Martusan’s bed reminded Tegan of golden stars in a sable sky. It was currently wrapped around (a clothed) Tegan. She was sipping a heated drink that stung her tongue with the trace of something alcoholic. She was considering faking a shiver for a while longer to get a second cup of it, but her head was already fuzzy and her nose was stuffed up. Fine time to catch a cold. Being on the run drained vitality: it was not merely the exertion but the awareness that you were being hunted.

The Time Lord had an apartment down here, ‘to be close to his work.’ Tegan thought he liked being ruler of his own underground domain. Martusan showed them the recording of their pogo-stick escape through the Panopticon. It was funny, Tegan had to admit, especially the way her voice squeaked when they bounced up.

He switched from the recording to show them the current view of the Panopticon. Time Lords may not need much sleep, but public areas tended to be empty late at night. Right now, though, the Panopticon was quite busy. There were certainly more than the usual number of guards about.

Tegan was too tired to show much reaction, but Keludar’s tension was impossible to miss, though he was civil to Lord Martusan. He kept a wary eye on the Time Lord, especially when Martusan was near Tegan. Personally, she thought she could handle whatever Martusan tried, but perhaps Keludar was suspicious of some ploy she couldn’t anticipate. When she’d first met Keludar, he’d been a sleekly groomed fellow who didn’t look as if he knew what it was to perspire. Now his hair was tousled and his eyes red-rimmed. She couldn’t blame him if the stress was getting to him.

Martusan asked no questions. His patient mien suggested he was prepared to wait indefinitely for them to speak on their own behalf. Tegan couldn’t help but remember what he’d said about prolonging the sex act. Perhaps in his own way, he was enjoying their unfulfilled anticipation.

His contact point signaled a message. Martusan left them alone in the chamber to answer.

Keludar knelt by Tegan’s chair so that they could talk softly together. “Are you able to move on? I thought about leaving you with him, but he’s up to something. That he asks so little means he knows too much.”

“Where can we go? We’re nowhere near the outer ring of the Citadel here. Do you think we can get to Andred’s area of authority before the Capitol Guard finds us?”

He shook his head. For the first time, Tegan saw years in his face; felt that he was indeed decades older. “The odds are very much against it, but I see no other chance.”

Martusan came back. Standing at the doorway, he looked them over with his suave smile. “I’m afraid I shall have to assist your decision making process.” He slipped off his green robe and stood in pale yellow shirt and grey trousers. Without the concealing robe, they could see he was holding something familiar in his hand.

“I challenge you, Keludar: you are an inadequate champion who has failed his charge time and again.” He tossed a toog stick at Tegan’s feet. “I will take up this cause in your place if I must prove my worthiness over your body. Fight or yield.” Martusan’s voice was calm without variance. Tegan stared at him disbelievingly.

Keludar picked up the stick and sprang to his feet. Tegan grabbed his arm. “No! What are you doing? I’m not letting him be my champion. I don’t need a champion.” She cast off the fur throw, untangled her rubbery legs, and sneezed so hard she fell back into her seat.

Both men startled at the explosion of sound, then immediately attacked each other. Tegan had a vague impression of violent motion, but her eyes were streaming and her throat was tightening. She huddled in her chair, trying to catch her breath.

The combatants reeled past her, rolled across the table, and onto the floor. Keludar cried out. Tegan threw herself out of the chair and staggered towards the contact point. She was going to call help and she didn’t care who came. “Emergency, emergency,” she wheezed. The panel did not light up, and she slapped at the activation control. Keludar cried out from the other room. An ominous silence followed.

“Emergency! Dammit.” She coughed.

“I locked the panel before I started the fight,” Martusan informed her politely.

Tegan whirled on him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? If this is seduction, stick it where the sun doesn’t shine!” She coughed wetly, hoping she was too disgusting to touch. Not that she believed he intended rape. He was the sort to be confident of winning her over.

“I’ve already done what I wanted to do. Did you think I was lying? Obviously, you’re in need of protection.” Martusan took her by the arm and led her inexorably back towards the other room.

The visitor chime sounded. “Permitted!” he called.

Tegan wondered whom he was expecting. “Let go of me, you bastard.” She tried to pull free. “I don’t want your protection and you are not my champion.”

“Will you accept me instead?” It was a woman’s voice. Tegan turned towards it in recognition and Martusan let go of her in surprise.

Leela came in: knife in one hand and Tegan’s boot in the other. She dropped the boot.

“Yes! Oh, Leela, I’m so glad to see you.” She started to cross the room, but Martusan caught her by the arm again. He held his toog ready to fend off Leela.

Leela’s eyes narrowed. “Where is Keludar?”

“Back here. He’s hurt, I don’t know how bad it is.”

“If I may interrupt?” Martusan was over his surprise. “The Guard is coming to collect this fugitive. The Lady Tegan is in my care. You’ve no standing in this matter, madam.”

“I’m standing here, and Tegan is my friend. She wants nothing of you. Do you think I will play your little game? I have a blade, not a stick, but I have honor. Where is yours?”

Keludar groaned from the other room. By the rattling of furniture, it sounded as though he were trying to pull himself up.

“Let me go!” Tegan snarled, trying to wrench free. Like her body, her anger was as weak as a kitten. Her chest felt tight and achy.

“She is injured. What have you done to her?” Leela advanced with the knife.

“She is ill. I have only offered her assistance, not harm.” Martusan was frowning. Leela obviously had not read his script, in which he was the hero. She slipped past them. Martusan allowed it. By now, he was more holding Tegan upright than restraining her. He half-carried her as they followed Leela.

Leela knelt down next to Keludar and examined him. Keludar was aware enough to struggle away from the touch. “It is Leela. Do not move. You have a head wound.” She looked up at them. “His skin is warm to the touch. He is also fevered.”

Martusan picked the fur off the floor and wrapped it around Tegan. Tegan shivered hard underneath it. The visitor chime sounded again.

“That should be the Guard,” Martusan said. “If your care is for her, take her into the bedroom to rest. I’ll call medical services.” He pushed Tegan into Leela’s arms, and the two women went into the bedroom. 

Tegan was glad to be able to lie down. The soft fur soothed some of her physical misery. 

Leela whispered, “Did he do something to you? Give you bad food or drink?”

There were voices in the other room, multiple new voices. “He gave me a drink, but Keludar didn’t have anything. Leela, I was cold for a long time. That might be all it is.”

“Lie still and rest. Do not fear. You have many friends.” Leela stood by the door listening, knife in hand. Then she ducked away and pressed herself into a shadowy alcove.

The door opened. Tegan saw Commandant Maxil and Lady Lithas looking in at her.

“What are you doing here?” Tegan rasped, with as much hostility as she could muster.

Lithas tossed Tegan’s red boot into the room. “You dropped this,” she said with dry humor.

Maxil examined her with his usual expression of disdain. “Are you dying?” he inquired, without a hint of irony.

“No, but it’s starting to look attractive.” Tegan stifled a cough. “What are you going to do with Keludar?”

“My men are returning him to confinement. Medtechs have been called in to examine both of you. Are you merely curious or expressing a personal interest in his fate?”

“He’s my friend.” Tegan rubbed at her chest. Lithas was watching her closely. Between the two of them, she felt like the main attraction at the zoo. “What is she doing here anyway? Is she your friend?”

Tegan had meant her words to have a nasty subtext, but perhaps she’d gone too far. Maxil didn’t react visibly, but Lithasomralirdan’s face contorted in open rage. She reasserted her emotional detachment discipline immediately, but Tegan hadn’t imagined it. Maxil glanced at his companion, saw nothing unusual, and said indifferently to Tegan, “The Director assisted us by tracking the lift belt you were using. They have inbuilt locator beacons.”

That was all Tegan needed to feel completely useless.

“Tegan!”

Lithas glanced behind her, and turned away from the door. Turlough came in through the gap she made.

“What happened to you? Hell, what happened to Keludar?”

Maxil left them alone. No one had noticed Leela and she put a finger to her lips. Tegan briefly wondered why Martusan hadn’t given her away, but she had more urgent things on her mind. “I’ve got some bloody awful cold all of a sudden, and Keludar fought Martusan. Have you spoken to the Doctor?” She struggled to sit up.

Turlough hurried over to the bed. “Don’t! You look awful. Worse than you sound.”

He was too late. As soon as Tegan was upright, she began coughing. When she pulled her hand away from her mouth, it was speckled with blood.

Turlough turned on his heel and went to the door. “Commandant, Lady Tegan requires emergency medical transport, now!”

“It will be here shortly. The detainee requires medical assistance as well.” The indifference in Maxil’s voice made Tegan shiver. If Maxil already thought of Keludar as a non-person, how big a step would it be to make him a non-alive person? She hoped there were too many witnesses here for him, or anyone else, to try something.

 

Float pallets were brought for both of them. Tegan shivered once she was out from under the fur. It wasn’t that she was cold now: no, she was burning up. She had to lie there in front of all these strangers in her robe and bare feet, and felt terribly exposed. She was glad of Turlough’s company. But where had Leela gone?

She was floated out of Martusan’s quarters. This would be all over soon. Where was the Doctor? How was the Professor? When had she last had a pedicure? Her feet were probably filthy. Tegan sulked on her pallet and folded her arms defiantly over her chest. She gave Martusan the most malevolent glare she had the strength for, but his faint smile didn’t alter a hair.

A float pallet was not supposed to transmit any motion to its cargo, but the when the entire group of people stopped in their tracks, the emotional jolt made up for the lack of physical shock.

“He’s going to kill me.” It took a second for the voice to register as Keludar’s. He sounded half-dead and half out of his mind.

The Doctor had come.

No.

The Lord President had come, wearing the Sash of Rassilon over robes of white and gold, and on his blond head, the Matrix crown. This man didn’t play cricket or pilot a rickety TARDIS from one disaster to another. The pleasant quality people had marked on in the past was missing from this face. There was no expression to replace it, but every Gallifreyan in the room bowed. The only exception was Keludar, struggling feebly to get off his pallet. He’d been strapped down.

The Lord President had a squad of the Presidential Guard with him. As a group, they looked like an army of angels had descended from Heaven to smite evildoers.

Maxil proved he had backbone. He came forward and saluted the Doctor.

“Report, Maxil.”

“Academy student Keludar has been taken into custody. He and the Lady Tegan are suffering from a malady the nature of which has not yet been determined. I propose to detain Lord Martusan as a witness.”

“It’s just a cold,” Tegan said, surprised into speaking up.

“Keludar has it too, Tegan,” Turlough explained from beside her. “Gallifreyans don’t get colds.”

“I understand that Lady Lithasomralirdan has been of assistance in your search, Commandant?” When the Doctor looked at Lady Lithas, everyone looked at her. She was standing by a container full of silvery-leafed bushes that bore both red and blue blooms. Ornamental plantings laid out with a mathematical precision and perfection of landscaping that put the gardens of Versailles to shame surrounded Martusan’s quarters. It was the biggest green space Tegan had been in since coming to Gallifrey, and she regretted that Martusan was such a weasel.

Lithas didn’t wait for Maxil to answer. “Once I knew the fugitive was wearing a lift belt, I knew it would be easy to track him and I offered my resources to the service of the Guard.”

“How civic minded. However, perhaps you might also have informed the Commandant that the lift belt in question is leaking toxic radiation?” He didn’t raise his voice, or change his inflection, but the words sliced the air. Lithas took a step back, only to bump into the planter. Tegan’s recent training in mental defense let her realize that the Doctor’s voice was backed by a kind of psychic force.

“Is it so? I would of course have informed the Commandant had I been aware of it. We are all being exposed at this moment and require anti-radiation treatment. That lift belts are obsolete technology does not excuse my oversight, Lord President. I apologize.”

“Medtechs, treat everyone present for exposure to tau radiation.” The Doctor did not acknowledge Lithas’ speech. Tegan took the pill that was offered her. Only Keludar resisted.

“He’s trying to kill me,” he kept insisting and turning his head away from the medtech’s hand.

The Doctor strode forward. People melted out of his path and that of the two guards flanking him. “Do you have an injection treatment available?” he asked the medtech.

“No, Lord President.”

Lithas screamed in outrage. Tegan saw her wrestling with Leela, who had grabbed her arm and hand. The huntress had been hiding behind the flowering bush, and now red and blue petals rained about them both. “Doctor! She attempts to conceal her evil!”

During the distraction, the Doctor popped the pill into Keludar’s mouth. He had to swallow or choke. “Young fool, take your medicine and you will live to regret your misdeeds. My word on it.” There was amusement in his voice. Tegan could have cried with relief that the Doctor she knew was back; the feeling of tension in the air faded away.

“Take the Director into custody. Remove all instrumentality from her person, starting with what’s in her hand.”

Two of the white clad guards took charge of Lithas. Once they had the device in her hand, Leela let go of the Time Lady and jumped lightly from the planter in a flurry of petals.

“Doctor, what the hell is going on?” Tegan felt better already. Her temperature had gone down. She was definitely chilly now, but no longer ached from the contrast between the heat of her body and the temperature of the air.

“I’ll explain later, Tegan,” the Doctor said calmly. “Rest now.”

She groaned, sick of the phrase. Turlough patted her on the shoulder, but she heard him chuckling.


	27. Chapter 27

Tegan spent the next two days flat on her back in bed under the care of a doctor, or as they called them here, medtechs. Most of it was spent unconscious. They purged the radiation from her body then performed extensive microsurgical repairs to restore the integrity of her cell structure and gene pattern. She was occasionally aware of the Doctor’s presence, of his assurance that she was safe and would be well again soon.

Pronounced convalescent, and advised to be careful of her nutritional intake and rest cycles, Tegan left hospital only to be escorted straight to a hearing of the Council of Time Lords. The Doctor was present, and smiled at her, but said nothing. He sat to the side, and let the council proceed. Lady Flavia was in charge.

She gave testimony about where she’d originally got the lift belt. Then they asked how it figured in her departure from Keludar’s confinement quarters. To her relief, they asked no questions about her elder Time Lord companion. She hadn’t the least idea how she could explain Professor Omicron without sounding daft. The whole experience seemed like a dream now. Then she was taken from the hearing to a special gallery where she could listen, but not communicate with those in the courtroom.

The next to testify was Keludar. He looked well enough, but different. In a human, it would be the difference between appearing in their mid-thirties instead of their mid-twenties. She wasn’t so sure it was physical. He didn’t mock or use his lazy, cynical pose, but spoke directly and to the point. He didn’t say anything she didn’t know, until he started testifying about the technical details of his use of the link belt for that pogo-stick maneuver. Tegan lost the thread of what he was saying two sentences in, and dozed in her chair. When he was taken out, she hoped he might be sent to join her, but he did not come in.

A medtech testified about the effects of the radiation, Tegan and Keludar’s recovery, and the treatment of others who had been less severely affected. Tegan smirked on hearing Martusan had got a strong dose, and was relieved to hear that Leela was only slightly exposed.

Lord Martusan himself appeared next. He testified that he had detected them using unauthorized transport within his sphere of authority, had intercepted them, and offered them shelter to gain their confidence before notifying the authorities.

Chancellor Flavia was chairing the council committee hearing. “We understand,” she said, “That you challenged Keludar to toog stick combat.”

“That is correct. He considered himself Lady Tegan’s champion and was trying to persuade her to leave. I couldn’t allow that to happen, so I attempted to influence events using his paradigm.”

Tegan, lacking anyone on whom to vent her spleen, stamped her foot. She had to admit she couldn’t catch Martusan out in a lie, but she was sure she’d guessed his real motives. A weasel he was and remained.

“Is this the toog stick with which you fought?” The toog stick was passed to Martusan for his examination, and he confirmed it was his.

“May I speak to the witness, Lady Flavia?” Receiving permission, the Doctor stood. “I’d like to thank you for the care you took of Lady Tegan. It is much appreciated on my part. However, if you consider the matter, I think you will see that particular toog now belongs to me.”

There was murmuring from the council table. Martusan’s hands tightened on the toog stick.

“If you contest my right, you may have to answer to Leela as well. She informs me that her challenge to you was never resolved, but that she is willing to yield in my favor.”

“Permission to rise, madam?” Martusan’s voice came through gritted teeth. Lady Flavia granted it. Martusan walked over to the Doctor and offered the toog stick. The Doctor took it, tucked it into his robes, and then sat down. Martusan was escorted out. No one heard Tegan cheer.

The next witness was Turlough, who testified as Chancellor Flavia’s agent. She had assigned him to work with Commandant Maxil and keep her personally informed of all developments. He testified that Lady Lithas had contacted Maxil and volunteered her personal assistance. She had made use of a device that allowed her to track the locator beacon on the lift belt. This had been less effective than her initial claims, as the signal was distorted by force screen interference while Keludar was Outside. Once they had re-entered the Citadel, she had been able to direct the search to the Environmental Systems headquarters location before they received Lord Martusan’s message.

One of the councilors remarked, “By personally attending to the matter, Lady Lithas exposed herself to the radiation. This is not the action of a knowingly guilty party.”

Lady Flavia stomped on him. “Your ability to divine Lady Lithas’ thought process at a remove of time and distance reveals greater telepathic ability than I knew you possessed, Councilor. However, unless you care to take the stand and add your witness testimony to the record, I recommend we on this committee restrict our activities to taking statements.” The councilor didn’t say another word the entire hearing.

Turlough was dismissed from the stand and was followed by Leela. She made tracking them sound like child’s play. Having quickly found the snow-free terrace, she had seen no traces of dirt or water had been tracked inside at the door on that level. She had asked the Outer Guard commander on duty where the platform led, gone down to the Environmental Systems facility, and found Tegan’s boot. After that, she had simply assumed they were with Martusan, since she knew he desired Tegan.

The council didn’t actually squirm, but they would have if they hadn’t been Time Lords. Only Lady Flavia remained truly stoic. “You challenged Lord Martusan. Did you believe he meant to harm either Keludar or Lady Tegan?” she asked.

“Tegan did not want his protection. I did not trust him to treat her with honor.”

“Yet you did not fight.”

“She was ill, and Keludar was sick and injured. It was not the time to fight. Martusan gave her into my care while he summoned medtechs.”

“Did you ask him to conceal your presence?”

“No. Either he would speak, or he would not, as did him most good.”

There was an amused stir in the hearing room. Tegan chuckled.

“Why did you not announce yourself to Commandant Maxil?”

“I heard the voice of Lithas, and I count her an enemy.” Leela’s eyes flashed. “She attempted to make trouble between me and Andred, on Otherstide. She has a cruel tongue and a bitter heart. I knew she was not there to help my friends. I wished to see what she would do while she thought herself unwatched.”

“Yet you remained hidden when the President arrived.”

“She was waiting for something. She kept consulting the tool she carried. I wished to discover her plan. When the Doctor said that everyone was being poisoned by radiation, she was not surprised. She closed her hand around the tool so that it could not be seen. When everyone else was watching the Doctor, she began to use the tool where it was hidden. She did not know that I was there. I knew that whatever she did would betray her evil if found out, so I stopped her.”

Leela was dismissed. The next witness was a forensic technician who testified that Lithas had attempted to enter a command to wipe out previous commands she’d made in the memory of the device and the computer it was linked to.

Leela was let into Tegan’s gallery. Tegan threw herself at Leela and hugged her. “I don’t know why they don’t have you run this place. You were smarter than the lot of them.”

“I am good at hunting,” Leela chuckled. “Listen to the Doctor. I have wished to know what he was doing.”

Tegan saw the Doctor taking the stand. She settled down to watch: she wanted to know what he’d been up to as well.

 

“I had engaged a healing trance. Lady Tegan was resting in the same room. While I was in trance, I was aware of her unexpected departure, but not the cause. On coming out of the trance, I was informed of the incident regarding Lady Tegan’s visit to the detainee, and that she and he were now missing. Since the search was already in progress, I decided that I would best use my efforts by consulting the Matrix to form an overall picture of the situation.”

“The data stream included Lady Lithas’ involvement. She stood out as an indeterminate figure in the equations. I traced her communications for more information. As Director of Celestial Harmonics, she has charge of systems capable of tracking any form of physical energy on this planet. The lift belts possess full remote maneuvering functionality as well as the locator beacon. The Director was able to trace the specific lift belt and communicate with its systems. The power pack was drained. She sent commands to disable the safety regulators and cause the residual energy to be released.”

“You claim these were deliberate actions?”

“I’ve entered the Matrix record into evidence. The council members can review the data for themselves. I cannot testify as to her intent, only as to the result of her actions.”

“And your actions? You took a detachment of the Presidential Guard. Normally, their duties consist solely of security of the Presidential apartments.”

“I felt it most prudent to work with Guards accustomed to answering directly to my authority. I am entitled to a bodyguard, as one of the perquisites of my office.”

“Why did you go in your own person?” Chancellor Flavia’s voice finally took on an identifiable quality—exasperation. Tegan had to sympathize.

“To make sure that lives were protected, I wanted to be able to bring all the authority I had to bear. The results bear me out: no one was killed by the radiation, and the detainee is in custody. I am satisfied.”

Chancellor Flavia glanced at the rest of the Council. “Does anyone have any further questions for the witness?” They conferred quietly. Flavia nodded, then returned her attention to the Doctor. “The Council wishes to know if you find the work of the Guard forces involved in this incident to be of acceptable standard.”

“I have full confidence in the competence of Commandant Maxil to manage the Guard. I suggest you ask him for an efficiency evaluation, if you find it necessary to pursue this issue. Maxil has my complete support.” Some of the council members looked surprised, to say the least.

“I thought they hated each other,” Tegan said, astounded.

“Andred says that Maxil is loyal to Gallifrey,” Leela volunteered. 

Turlough came in. “You can come out now, Tegan. The hearing’s over.”

“What? Isn’t Lady Lithasomir… Lithas going to testify?”

“No, she submitted a statement to the council. Denying everything, I believe.”

“So why was I stuck up here in the first place?”

“To keep you separated from the other witnesses, of course.”

“If you’re going to be sarcastic at me, I’m not going to thank you.” Tegan smiled at him. “Thanks, by the way, for helping. I knew it would turn out all right when you and Leela showed up.”

“How else was I going to find out what you were doing bouncing across the Panopticon? I was down at the Academy when I saw that. What an uproar that caused! I bet there are still people passing the recording around. Keludar will never live it down.”

“I’ll never live it down,” Tegan grumped.

“It was very funny when the Time Lord picked up your boot. He looked so confused.” Leela broke into a rare, broad grin.

“Never, ever,” said Tegan. “So where’s Professor Omicron?”

“What’s he got to do with this?”

“He went with me to visit Keludar. He used the name Lord Azanghrell.”

Andred came to meet Leela and she left with him.

Turlough shrugged. “I don’t know. I came in late, it seems. Let’s find the Doctor. The hearing was about Lithasomralirdan’s actions, not Keludar’s escape. He’s not important enough to rate a council hearing.”

“He might be glad of that for once.”

 

After a certain painful and turbulent period in her life that Tegan did not like to dwell on, she had spent a few months performing community service in a hospital. She’d worked some of the time in the geriatric wing. Many of the old people never had visitors. Some were far enough into dementia that they didn’t notice, but the heartbreaking ones would talk about their children and how they looked forward to seeing them on the holidays. The children seldom came.

Now she sat vigil by the bedside of a man who claimed to be as old as recorded human history. He was listed under the name Omicron, as the real Azanghrell had bitterly protested that someone had stolen his identity. The occupant of the bed had not been able to stay awake long enough to lay claim to that or any other name.

_”He engaged his respiratory bypass,” the Doctor had said, “and there was no discernable brain damage, though we haven’t got a scan to compare before to after. He has had a few minutes of consciousness, and was lucid during them. He asked for you.”_

Azanghrell meant to die alone. He’d leave his massive corpse as a horror and shame to Gallifrey. This was a planet where routine health was just that. No one had to have an imperfect body unless they chose to keep irregular teeth or eccentrically shaped noses. The Doctor could have his mild shortsightedness corrected if he wanted. Tegan suspected he enjoyed fiddling with those glasses he occasionally wore.

Azanghrell was fat by choice. It was a political and philosophical statement: his judgment on his entire planet. There was neither enjoyment of food or eating for comfort involved. He magnified his malevolence. Tegan didn’t care if he’d helped them as Keludar said. She was sure that like Martusan, he’d done it to advance his own agenda. He would die alone in a room and make of himself a gruesome proof to some unfortunate maintenance worker or security guard that Gallifreyans were indeed still flesh and blood.

The Professor had asked for her. She’d be there for him, no matter how long she had to camp out. Tegan had been there three hours without a sign, and she was wondering whom she’d have to pester to get a bed brought in.

Dedication or not, she was bored and cranky. She got a medtech to let her borrow a datapad, and diverted herself by drawing on it. The stylus was not as satisfying as a pencil. She missed the glide of graphite over the subtly toothed surface of virgin paper. On the other hand, it was its own eraser. Experimenting, she found that she could produce pen and ink style drawings. The stylus even had a brush mode, normally used for highlighting.

“My dear young lady, what are you doing?”

She looked up from the pad in her lap. “I wondered when you would wake up. I’ve been drawing. Does this look familiar?” Tegan held up the data pad. She’d drawn Azanghrell.

“Certainly I know him. So you have been in Azanghrell’s lair.”

“Yes, me and Keludar, and we were glad to get out. He let you use his name?”

The Professor chuckled softly. “It’s more complicated than that. Azanghrell was my name. I transferred it to him. It’s easier to stay hidden when someone else is being you in your place.”

Tegan stared at him. “So neither of you is going by your real name?”

“Is it so important? It’s only a label affixed at the beginning of life. If I knew that Gallifrey would prosper but my name be forgotten, I could not ask for a finer place in her history.”

“Gallifreyans,” Tegan muttered. “How are you feeling, Professor?”

“Well enough for the moment. How is it with you and Keludar?”

“We both escaped with whole skins, but it was a near thing.”

“’Whole skins.’ What vividly alarming metaphor your culture produces.” He closed his eyes and Tegan leaned forward, worrying he’d passed out or simply died on the spot.

“Professor?”

“It’s difficult to predict how long the final incarnation will last. My grip on life is failing. I should like to see Keludar and your President before I pass. Will you ask for them to come to me?”

Tegan bit her lip. He was so calm that she couldn’t find the tears. “I don’t think you’ll get one without the other.”

“I shall sleep now. Don’t worry, I shan’t die before time.” He closed his eyes.


	28. Chapter 28

Tegan thought that Keludar was still confined. She wondered what the Doctor was going to do about him. She needed to speak up for him. If she wouldn’t, who would? She sent a message to the Doctor and went back to the Professor’s bedside to wait.

A hand on the shoulder gently nudged her awake. The Doctor called her name. “Tegan,” he said, and she blinked her eyes open. Her neck was stiff. She’d curled up in the chair and fallen asleep in a rather cramped position.

Everyone else was there, and awake. They’d had to wake up the feeble human. She glared at them all impartially: men, Time Lords (or would-be), and Gallifreyans. Tegan yawned, arching her back and stretching her arms over her head. It became apparent by their attentive expressions that today’s category of expletive was ‘men.’

The Doctor took up a position by her chair. She looked up. He smiled at her and put his hand on the back of the chair. Tegan took a deep breath. There was no window, but the air filled with sunlight.

“Well, Professor?” Keludar stood on the far side of the bed. “I hope you don’t feel the need to apologize again. The message you left was sufficient. I chose all that happened; I knew you had a hand in events. I knew there was intent behind your words that weighted their meaning.”

“Quite right. You are no pawn of mine; I had no wish to move others, but to offer them motivating ideas. Unlike poor Borusa, I do not wish to live forever that I may manage the lives of others. I was Azanghrell, but I gave up my name for freedom. My biodata extract is concealed in the Matrix under the name ‘Oedipus.’”

“What?” Tegan and Keludar chorused the word. Tegan added, “What is this with the Greek? Am I just hearing some form of Gallifreyan translated as Greek?”

The Doctor waved the explanation in the Professor’s direction.

“Your ancient civilizations were visited by other worlds, among them the Gallifreyans. The Greek language actually functions quite well in translating Gallifreyan. There has been a borrowing of vocabulary in some cases. However, in the case of Oedipus, I refer to the legend with which you may be familiar. I found the binding of his fate by essential paradox to be a fascinating tale, with much personal resonance.” The Professor cleared his throat. “Not including the part about killing his father and mating with his mother. Those concepts do not apply to Gallifrey.”

“And what of this applies to me?” Keludar inquired, with a touch of his old mockery.

The Professor looked at the Doctor instead. “Lord President, my biodata extract will confirm my rank as a senior Time Lord. It is my privilege to nominate a Time Lord candidate, and I have chosen Keludar of the Patrexean Chapter.”

“Heard and witnessed,” said the Doctor. Tegan clapped her hands together gleefully.

Keludar looked stunned. “Professor, how can I accept? You would have never been endangered if you hadn’t been trying to rescue me.”

“Shh!” said the Doctor. “The hearing completely ignored why you needed to escape confinement and how it was done. It is better that their attention is not turned on you, the Professor, or Tegan.”

“Keludar, I do this for Gallifrey,” the Professor said sternly. Even frail, lying on his deathbed, he could summon the authority of a senior Time Lord. “I expect you to be worthy of this advancement. Remember that.”

“You are no longer detained,” the Doctor added, “You may return to your studies at the Academy. I will communicate the change in your status to them.” He smiled at the Professor. “I’ve seen that file. I always wondered why a Time Lord would use that name. But it has a ‘deceased’ status assigned to it.”

The Professor giggled. “It does but I don’t, not quite.”

“Professor!” Tegan protested.

The joke might have shocked Tegan, but Keludar laughed. “That joke never got old, but you did.”

“I am glad we shared it again. Now go on, young Time Lord to be.”

The Doctor escorted Keludar to the door and informed the waiting guard of the former detainee’s new status.

Tegan sat stifling sniffles. The Professor was going to die, and it felt odd to grieve over the end of a ten thousand year old life. She’d grown fond of him over their brief but eventful acquaintance. The Doctor came back to her side and proffered a handkerchief. Tegan dabbed at her damp eyes.

“When we are done here, I ask that you summon a Matrix technician to me, President Doctor. I have never procrastinated in my life. Tegan, my dear, you may not weep for me. I regret the brevity of our acquaintance, but it was a given from my point of view. I am ready to die. But there is one favor the two of you could do me first, if you would.”

“And what is that, Professor?” Tegan lifted her face from the handkerchief. She glanced at the Doctor, but he was also waiting, one eyebrow raised, to hear the request.

“I should like to see the two of you kiss. I know that I have done such things myself, but it was so very long ago. Those memories are obscure. I have wondered if Gallifrey could endure the renaissance of emotion. You have traveled farther along that path than I ever dared, Doctor. Of course, if it is too private an act, I will not intrude.”

Tegan’s first reaction had been to refuse. The humiliation of having her relationship with the Doctor debated in public over toog stick had not yet become obscured in her memory. It had been easier to forgive Kel when they were on the run together. Now the grudge stirred her temper. She twisted the handkerchief between her hands. The loneliness in the Professor’s last words reached her. She looked up at the Doctor and found him regarding her seriously.

“If called upon to kiss you in front of the full Council of Time Lords, I would not deny you.” His mouth was held straight, but Tegan was convinced that his eyes were smiling. She rose from the chair, offering her hand. The Doctor took it, his fingers twining into the embrace of hers. He drew her close; she cradled the corner of his jaw; he clasped her waist. They kissed. Winter met spring, and came inevitably to thaw.

“I don’t remember it being like that,” the Professor said in a small voice.

Tegan stepped free of the Doctor’s embrace. She leaned over the bed and kissed the Professor’s dry, ancient cheek. “Yes, it was like that. I promise.”

He blinked at her bemusedly. “I shan’t argue. Thank you, my dear, that was more warming than a year of hot possets.” He looked past her to the Doctor, and the Doctor claimed her hand again. “Yes, it’s time to leave me. I wish to compose myself for this last transition. Farewell, my young friend.”

“Goodbye, Professor.” Tegan let the Doctor lead her out. She waited, taking little note of her surroundings, as the Doctor gave instructions for the Matrix Keeper himself to attend Lord Omicron’s passing.

He came back and took her gently by the arm. “Brave heart, Tegan. Remember, more than ten thousand years old.”

“I guess I can’t really believe that in my heart. I can’t think my way around it, it’s too much.”

“It seems a long time to me, as well. I shan’t make it so far, and I’m actually relieved.”

There was a guard attending the Doctor, walking a few paces behind them. Tegan only hesitated a moment before murmuring, “Judging by that kiss, there’s life left in you yet.”

“I trust you judge correctly,” the Doctor said in his light, dry way. His fingers pressed a small caress on her arm.

 

Tegan didn’t feel like doing much of anything for the next week. She felt drained of energy. A medtech examined her daily and encouraged her to take mild exercise. She spent a lot of time out in the garden. She wanted to know it like the back of her hand, so that finding the addition she wanted to make would be the same experience as fitting the piece of a jigsaw puzzle that makes sense of the pattern. Turlough visited her every day with the latest news.

“Keludar has become quite the big man on campus. The less he says about what happened during your big escape, the bigger the speculation gets. If he doesn’t talk at all, he looks even better.”

Tegan looked up from her sketchpad. “Yes, but he can’t enjoy that.”

Turlough chuckled. “He saves his barbs now and only lets loose with the best, and can be sure of a laugh. Apparently, nearly being killed in Time Lord politics is a straight route to popularity.”

“Then we should be popular,” Tegan said dismissively.

“Oh, but we are. My status has risen, but I am nothing compared to the mysterious and beautiful Tegan Jovanka, the Lord President’s Lady.” Turlough used the theatrical style that Tegan still found annoying, no matter that she liked Turlough now.

“They don’t really call me that, do they?” Tegan’s pencil point broke. She was using her materials from the TARDIS, and had to settle for a little plastic pencil sharpener. The sight of graphite and wood shavings on her fingers cheered her up. “Oh, I don’t care what silly people say.”

Turlough stretched out his long thin legs. He often wore robes because it gave him a little bulk, but Tegan could still make out the points of his knees. She wondered how old he really was, or if his race merely had a long adolescence. “That’s what you are, close enough. And it’s not only since you came to Gallifrey.”

Tegan tried again to capture the interesting, spiky shape of the needles of a Gallifreyan evergreen shrub. “What, you mean the sweet way we shouted at each other all the time?”

“More like the way he would touch you without thinking about it. Don’t look so surprised—well, maybe you were trying too hard to be as prickly as that shrub to see it.” He’d started out with a grin in his voice, but it suddenly vanished. “Remember, I came on board planning to kill the Doctor. I’m glad to say now that I was a poor assassin, but I did study him for weaknesses. He was obviously fond of Nyssa, and he obviously clashed with you, but even so, he touched you more.”

“I cannot believe we are having this conversation.” Tegan started packing up her art supplies.”

“Maybe, but you heard me out, all the same.” Now the smirk was back. Tegan dove for a handful of snow, but when she looked up, armed and ready, the smirk had prudently retreated, taking Turlough with it.

 

The interior spaces of the Citadel were on timers that simulated day and night cycles. One day, night came early. They shorted the daylight by one Gallifreyan second for every year of the Professor’s long life.

The Doctor had been extremely busy in the aftermath of the Lithas affair. He had checked in with her once a day, dutifully, and that’s all she saw of him. However, today, he invited her to his apartment and they sat playing chess with the monitor showing a view of the darkened Panopticon.

“You became very fond of him in a short time.”

“Yes. The whole Citadel seemed less vast and ominous, knowing Professor Omicron was sneaking about, giggling to himself and having the time of his lives. Now I know there are a lot of dark, empty places to be lost in.” Tegan lifted her chin. “Fortunately, I’m used to that after traveling with you.”

“Glad to have been of some use! He left you property. His will was split between you and Keludar.”

“What?” Tegan bleated.

“He had to put off dying for two days in order to help the accountants properly document it all. He didn’t own anything under the name Azanghrell. Speaking of Azanghrell—“

“Wait! Property?”

“Yes, some of it physical, some of it intellectual. For instance, you are now the owner of the rights to ‘Omicron’s Guide to Postulated Coordinates,’ and ‘The Galactigraphy of Imaginary Numbers.’ The latter is a respected scientific work, by the way.”

“Uh-huh,” said Tegan, her mind still spinning.

“He left Keludar his Matrix access key. I really should have confiscated it. I’m sure it’s been… creatively modified. Oh, yes, Azanghrell. He’s gone.”

“He’s dead, too?”

“No, or at least, not to anyone’s knowledge. He’s vacated that apartment. Apparently, he had a personal transmat device. Was he really that… huge?”

“Like an over-inflated tire. If he moved too abruptly he started turning red as if he were about to—“

The Doctor cut her short hastily, “Thank you, I get the idea. Might it have been some sort of deception?”

“I didn’t spot anything fake, but only his hands and face were really visible. Did the council try to call him as a witness?”

“Yes, and they sent a medtech to check on his radiation exposure.” He made a move in the chess game. “Professor Omicron told me that Azanghrell was also engaged in sociological research. They consulted each other, without ever meeting in person. Maxil told me that Azanghrell had commented on his monographs. Sociology is also Maxil’s field.”

“I guess that makes sense for a cop.” Tegan bit her lower lip and considered the board. The Doctor played with a handicap, but usually that only made it easy to see that he was about to win, no matter what she did. “What are you going to do with Lady Lithas? And what was she up to, anyway? She seemed to be taking it personally if it was all about politics.”

The Doctor sighed. “Yes, she did. We may never know her personal motivations, Tegan. The real mistake she was caught in was trying to conceal the commands she made to the remote control of the lift belt. The commands themselves only indicate the possibility that she attempted to murder Keludar. If deliberate, it was a brilliant improvisation—“

“If deliberate? She was certainly fast enough to realize they’d made her look bad! Doctor, she stood there while we were dying from radiation poisoning. That’s pretty cold.”

The Doctor cleared his throat. “So did I, Tegan. I knew that you were at risk, but I concealed the information, hoping to entrap Lithas into revealing her complicity. At that, it was Leela who caught her, not me. I’m afraid the evidence is not conclusive and Lithas will not be charged with any crime. However, she has resigned her position as Director of Celestial Harmonics. After all, if not guilty of attempted murder, she was certainly responsible, willfully or not, for the release of toxic radiation. That’s exactly the sort of accident the Director is in charge of preventing.”

“Doctor, the duel… the toog stick fight. Why did you bring up the possibility of my memories being erased? I know you said you wouldn’t let it happen, and I believe you, but why? I was terrified, you know. I would have lost years of my life.”

He lowered his eyes, the spiky lashes making him look like a scolded schoolboy. It wasn’t fair for a being so old to look so young and vulnerable. “It was done before to companions of mine. The Time Lords caught up with me during my first regeneration. I was sentenced to lose the rest of that regeneration and to exile on Earth. The memories of our travels together were excised from the minds of my companions, Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot. All our adventures, all the brave things they did, the pain they suffered, it was stolen from them, a wrong I can never right. A wrong done them by the Time Lords, in their arrogance.” His voice shook with emotion. “I wanted all those witnesses to know the cost of our assumption of privilege. Yes, we must protect the Web of Time, but that does not mean we have the right to cavalierly remake the lives of other beings.”

The Doctor met her gaze again, his eyes wet. “Some might say I do exactly that by letting them travel with me. Is that, true, Tegan? Adric was not the first to die. I transported a girl named Vicki from your future to ancient Troy and left her there, at her request. I preserved Nyssa’s life when she should have died with her world. As for you, the fabric of your life was torn apart at the hour of our meeting; you’ve risked death repeatedly and had your mind interfered with more times than anyone should have to bear. Why did you want to come with me in Amsterdam?”

Tegan got out of her chair and went to him. She crouched by his chair and put her hand on his knee. “I never told you how I got sacked, did I?” He shook his head. “I thought flying all over the world would be exciting. I’d be able to go new places, meet new people, and do things I’d never done before. What did I do? Waited on grumpy passengers, saw the inside of a lot of hotel rooms, and hardly had time to nap and shower before I had to get back on a plane and go home again. By the fourth time I had my bum pinched, I couldn’t keep my temper. I let him have a piece of my mind, I let the pilot have a piece, and then I served it up to the airline management.” She grinned at him; he laughed and swept her up into his lap.

“Ah, Tegan, you take my breath away. So you came back because I don’t pinch you?”

“Those words never passed my lips. I came back, because I realized I didn’t know when I had it good. Yes, it was dangerous, and there’ve been times when I complained and wished myself home, but Doctor… you gave me a chance to become something bigger than I ever imagined for myself. I knew what it would be like, and I came back. I didn’t come back for your beautiful blue eyes, either. I came back for me. That’s why I rushed on board and didn’t dare ask permission. I was afraid you’d say no, after all the trouble you went to getting me back to Heathrow. I’m sick of Heathrow and I never want to go there again.”

“I feel the same way,” he chuckled. His arms tightened around her and she rested her cheek on his shoulder. On the viewscreen, the Panopticon lay still silent and dark. “Tegan, what about staying on Gallifrey? You came back for our travels on the TARDIS.” He’d noticed her glance at the screen.

“I wanted to travel and see new places. Here’s a whole new world. I’ll stay as long as you don’t mind having a tourist around.”

“I like having you here.”

They sat quietly together. Tegan hadn’t expected this to feel so easy and natural. It was one thing to play to feelings of sexual attraction, but she didn’t have the heart for exploring that right now. She was going to miss the Professor’s company and the kindness he’d always shown her. Right now, though, the Doctor was content to hold her, and she was content to be held, while night came early.


	29. Chapter 29

Tegan could not shake off her depression. Not being one to mope, she headed down to the Academy. She noticed, on her way, that people saw her. No longer was she the odd alien primitive to be rigidly not noticed. They didn’t smile: Gallifreyans were not big smilers, but if their eyes met hers, many gave a polite little nod. ‘I see you,’ was all it meant, a small joy that gathered warmly behind her breastbone.

The map room was a good place to remember the Professor.

_“Old maps are the landscapes of our memories, reminding us that the route into the past is not merely a matter of travel by time capsule. I always think they’re lovely.”_

_“There is no more summer for me, my dear, but only a lingering winter. This is my last regeneration, you see. Sometimes I think the only thing that keeps me going is the look of surprise on people’s faces when they find out I’m still alive.”_

_“I think it’s an awful shame that there will be so little of you in history. A few short decades, like a flower that blooms too close to winter’s first frost.”_

“The Doctor decided to take up the office; he chose to do it; he did indeed do it. He performed all the necessary actions to acquire the Presidency. To say he did it against his true wishes is not merely meaningless, but insulting. It implies he does not know what he’s doing.”

Tegan put her hand over a map section. She now owned a botanical preserve somewhere on the continent that was kept in as natural state as Gallifrey could achieve after having developed from a technological society. She had no clue as to how she would visit it, or even if it was allowed.

The Doctor had meant to make this visit temporary; had planned to assist the Chancellor in rebuilding the government, and then make his escape to the freedom of the vortex. Now that he had taken up this challenge, could he walk away? Did he think that the stagnant course of Gallifreyan life could change?

What would become of her if he decided he had to stay? Maybe he could lead Gallifrey out of its long winter to the upheaval of spring without destroying the planet, but for her winter would come again soon. The numbers spoke for themselves, but did they speak for her? She was 24. She couldn’t hold the span of her entire life in her mind, no more than she could conceive of the Professor’s ten thousand years. When it was over, it would be over, but she was alive now.

Tegan became aware that someone was behind her. She expected Keludar. It would be like him to try to surprise her with one of his quips.

“I miss him, too,” Keludar said.

“He was like a father to you. He gave you life—that is, if you can pass your exams.”

“I’m more intelligent than I appear,” he said gravely.

She looked back over her shoulder and he blinked innocently. “You do appear shockingly handsome rather than shockingly intelligent,” she jibed, to put him in his place.

“Who knows what hideous countenance I may own on regeneration? Or worse, a foolish one. Too much nose, and not enough chin. I’ve seen examples on quite important Time Lords.” She slapped his arm and he laughed. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist teasing you.”

“We’ve a saying on Earth, ‘handsome is as handsome does.’”

“A hit! Lady, you wound me. I am chastised; I am put down; I cry mercy.”

“Oh, shut up. Here I thought you’d grown up at last.” Tegan scowled, but couldn’t hold it.

 

She had dinner with Leela and Andred. In this small company, Andred unbent enough to let his feelings for his partner be seen. It was nothing showy: the touching of hands, a shared look. Leela was not one for public displays of affection, but in private, she was playful with him. Tegan knew herself privileged by their freedom in her presence.

Later, he left them alone to attend to some work. Tegan was reluctant to leave, though she worried she might be overstaying her welcome. She regarded Leela’s face. The strong bones and tan made her age hard to guess. It was also possible that Gallifreyan health care was retarding the aging process.

“Does something trouble you, Tegan?”

“Are you happy, living here? You and Andred are good together, but is that enough? Is the life you lead apart from your time with him enough?”

“Enough for what? I do not understand the question.”

Tegan shook her head. “I don’t either. Never mind.”

“I am happy, because I choose to be happy. My life is what it is, and I accept it. To deny truth causes unhappiness. Your problem is that you are still lonely in the flesh. Does the Doctor not please you?”

Tegan blushed to her eyebrows. She thought she was blunt, but her spades were shovels, compared to Leela’s.

“We haven’t… he’s very busy, being the President… I’ve been ill…”

Under Leela’s frank gaze the words all sounded like the feeble excuses they were. Her advice was straight to the point. “A Gallifreyan male is not trained to hunt. If you are ready, you must go to him.”

 

The next day, she was supposed to resume her schedule of duties and lessons. When the Doctor made her his official hostess, he had planned that increasing purely social activities within Gallifreyan society would help develop informal connections among people used to regarding each other as political leverage. She needed all the etiquette lessons the Doctor and Flavia could cram into her. The complexity of those lessons made her training in mental defense a refreshment break in comparison.

The routine would resume, the Doctor would be busy, and she would hardly ever have time with him except as teacher to student. In fact, it was time now for her mental defense lesson.

 

Tegan took a seat on the bench in the vivarium room, and waited for the Doctor to join her. He was punctual, as she expected, stepping into the circle of golden light. “Tegan, are you sure you’re up to beginning these lessons again?” He stopped and took her in, regarding her uncertainly.

Words failed her. Tegan stood up and let the fur that was her only covering fall away. Her pulse fluttered, and she managed a smile that felt like the bravest thing she’d ever done.

The Doctor’s gaze followed the drop of the fur, then drifted slowly back up. A smile of delight lit his face. “Ah, Tegan. You take my breath away.” He quoted himself deliberately, his voice huskier than normal. He crossed the space between them with two quick strides and gathered her in for his kiss.

Cool hands warmed as they explored her bare skin. Drinking in the Doctor’s kiss, Tegan pressed close and was left in no doubt that there was one shape of his desire that she could grasp. The Doctor broke the kiss suddenly, and cupped her face between his hands. “Tegan Jovanka.” He said her name in quiet wonder. Then he gave her the same grin she’d last seen when he scored a century in cricket, and hastily wrapped her back up in the fur. For a moment, she thought it was over. Then he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bedroom.

Tegan started to laugh. “I believe this is exactly the sort of thing Lord Martusan had in mind for this fur,” she teased.

“He is a Time Lord, and intelligence is expected of us.” He put her down on the bed. Tegan sat up on the fur and watched the Doctor strip. A decorative stalk of celery would never again be enough to let her pretend he wasn’t a man. With every inch of skin he bared, anticipation added heat to her arousal. It wasn’t that he was an Adonis, though his body was lean and graceful, and his shoulders broader than she had thought. It was the past they shared, and the profound change this moment was making in their future.

Her fingers curled into the fur. She wanted him, pure and simple, a physical hunger that had once been her greatest joy before she learned how bitter its dregs could taste. Tegan had cast aside fear of the future when she had let the fur fall away from her naked body under his eyes. The future came to her in a rush of flesh as cool and smooth as marble. Unlike stone, his skin warmed swiftly on contact with hers. She lay back against his encircling arm and drew his mouth down on hers. Lips kissed lips and hands kissed hands, then lips and hands went roaming for new kisses to share. The fur was soft against her skin, but not as silken as his lips.

Was his body heavy, or had she so completely forgotten what it was to be with a man? She planed a hand down his back and the surface hardly gave as if like a city that ate a mountain, her alien lover held undreamt-of secrets under that human-looking skin. “I am flesh and blood, Tegan. Do you need more proof?” he asked, his lips skimming the line of her jaw. He guided her hand between them, gently encouraged her to trade intimate touches.

Her hand was trembling and so was he. Her fingers teased him until he moaned into her hair. She startled at the sound. He lifted his head; they looked at each other in mutual inquiry, and then broke out in a fit of giggles. The Doctor recovered first. He smiled seraphically at her and bowed his head. His lips on her breast and his fingers between her legs turned her giggles into moans.

Tegan knew he wanted her to make the move that would join them. Her fingers lingered possessively on swollen flesh but she could not bring herself to make it final. The scars on her heart bound her to pain and anger and inhibited her will to put her hand in the fire again.

He rested between her thighs, his weight still mostly on his arms. Forget time travel and space travel; any one person is an alien world. The Doctor traced a fingertip down the side of her face. He did not make mental contact, but as always, he loomed large in the psychic landscape. “I come in peace,” he said at last.

There were a few beads of sweat on his skin, souvenirs of her alien heat. She lifted her hips and led him against her. “Then come inside,” she said, the wary tension receding from her body in shivers. He entered, and she transferred her hands to his hips to urge him deeper. She remembered now why she had once craved this, and craved it once again. He was moving with deliberate care. She could feel the strength leashed under her hands.

His face was buried in the crook of her neck. She nuzzled into his hair to find his ear and softly blew across it. He kept being bigger than she expected, as if for years she’d subtracted part of his being from her perceptions. Now it was plain all these parts belonged to a man. “You aren’t going to hurt me, Doctor.” It was a permission meant as much for her as for him. “I’m indestructible, remember?”

He slid home within her, and lifted his head. His smile dazzled, he tossed the fringe of hair out of his eyes. “I remember everything you’ve said to me, Tegan, including the time you compared me unfavorably to a broken clock.”

“I like you much better now,” she claimed giddily. She pouted an invitation to kiss, and he accepted. No further negotiations were made; no barriers remained. They shared themselves recklessly, living on borrowed time, as lovers always must.

 

The Doctor contemplated the ceiling. Once he had made a rather pompous speech to a Cyberleader about the value of emotions. He supposed that it was no coincidence that he had been defending Tegan at the time. The words had been entirely inadequate: ‘small, beautiful events are what life is all about,’ indeed. The Cyberleader had been unusually skilled for one of his kind in perceiving exploitable weaknesses. He directed his hostage threat at Tegan instead of Adric. What had the Doctor given away inside a couple of minutes? What word or deed had betrayed an emotional dynamic neither of them acknowledged?

It was not events to which emotion attached. The Doctor had chiefly experienced emotion by attachment to his traveling companions. They challenged him, supported him, exasperated him, instructed him, and yes, loved him. That was a dangerous word on Gallifrey. No law forbade it, but in practice, it was more proscribed than the name of Morbius. Love, the ultimate four letter word.

He’d cared for his many companions, for some as deeply as the woman who now drowsed against his shoulder. Yesterday he would have said that sexual intercourse would not change his feelings for anyone. That was true, if one considered only the mechanical aspect, and entirely false otherwise. A nude body could be as overlooked as statuary, but the nakedness of lovers was a shared thing, an exchange of trust. Tegan had exposed vulnerabilities compared to which nudity was of little importance.

The Professor had had a great deal to say for his ears alone, about Tegan. The Doctor agreed with much of it. Gallifrey, as learned as she was, was not omniscient or omnipotent. Her citizens were not gods compared to other beings. He chuckled to himself. To think he’d worried that Tegan would be bored on Gallifrey!

“What’s funny?” she asked, kissing his shoulder. Her lashes barely lifted to show the dark glitter of her eyes.

The Doctor had agreed with Keludar that kisses enhanced her beauty. He was fallible enough to wish that Keludar never got the opportunity to see her like this. He put a finger under Tegan’s chin and lightly kissed her lips. “I was hoping you had not found Gallifrey a dull vacation resort.”

“Hah! Not with you on the planet.” Her words slurred.

“Go to sleep, Tegan.”

“You’re going to get up, aren’t you?” She rolled over onto her side.

“Not yet. Sexual activity is a drain on even my physical resources,” the Doctor replied, not quite modestly. He fitted himself against the curve of her body. The small, sleepy snort with which she replied made him smile. Sated, the pleasure center of his brain still mildly stimulated, he was mellow enough to sympathize with Keludar. Tegan’s neck was truly graceful, enough to tempt a Time Lord into stealing a kiss. In fact…

The Doctor leaned forward enough to let his breath play over her skin. “Mmmm,” said Tegan. She slowly dipped her head, deliberately exposing the nape of her neck. Not wishing to keep her awake, he traced the delicate furrow with the softest of kisses. The taste of her aura changed as she fell asleep. He let the change in her aura spread to his. It was a small, beautiful event they could share. He hoped there would be many more.

 

The End

 


End file.
